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The blogger over at “Samaritan’s Song” recently had a post entitled: Remember the Absent. It resonated with me, and the last sentence poignantly brings it to a close: “If a sparrow cannot fall without God’s notice, how can a person vanish without ours?”
Awhile back I had a series of posts about welcoming people into the life of the church, and one post was about being a shepherd. Here are 2 excerpts from that post:
Most of us don’t liv
e in an area where literal shepherding exists anymore. A shepherd cares for the life of his sheep. A shepherd watches the flock, and goes after sheep who stray. Jesus is called our shepherd (John 10:11-18), and church leaders are to shepherd the flock of believers as well (I Peter 5:2). But I also think individual Christians should have a shepherding care for each other. For example, the New Testament contains numerous “one another” passages….
Be on the look out for people…try to be more observant. If someone misses small group or the church
service a couple weeks in a row, check in on them. Give them a call. This isn’t about harassing someone, but just letting them know in a friendly way that they were missed and showing concern that they are okay. There is nothing worse than feeling like an invisible person…that you can suddenly stop showing up and no one even notices. Shepherds care when a sheep goes missing, but first they have to notice that the sheep has gone missing to begin with!
Back to the current post:
Looking back over a lifetime of church experiences, I have unfortunately often encountered more “shepherding care” in the secular setting than in the church setting. How can this be??
I know that I’m not alone in this observation or personal experience. A somewhat common complaint I’ve heard over the years is from a person who went absent from church or a church group, and no one ever noticed.
Even worse, is how Christians can respond to this type of concern. They immediately go on the defense. They may accuse the said person of having an entitlement mentality. They may accuse the person of being self-centered and demanding because they thought everyone should have noted their absence! Sigh. Or they pass judgment, assuming that the person has not showed up because they are lazy or lack commitment.
I do realize that an entitlement mentality (and such) can exist, but that is not what I typically observe from those who have experienced being the invisible person. For example, a middle-aged single man recently shared with us, in a matter of fact way, that he missed church for several weeks and not one person noticed or reached out to him. He did not share this in an angry or emotional way, but rather in a levelheaded factual way. Particularly as a single person, with no wife or kids in the home, I thought it was extra sad that no one checked in on him.
At my health club once, I observed something that really touched me. I was exercising near the front desk and overheard a phone call. The employee was checking up on an older gentleman who routinely came to the gym every day, and suddenly failed to come 2 days in a row. This employee was concerned, and made a phone call to double check that this man was okay.
The church should excel at reaching out and checking in on people. After all, that is the nature of our God. God, through Jesus the Son, stepped into our world! While there are churches or individual Christians who reflect our God in this way, I honestly feel that way too many are failing in this area. Thoughts welcome.
* Continuing thoughts here: Reaching out without being a hound.
Enough Light 
Oh, this is such an important post, Laura. I wrote a post several years ago called “Me, the Invisible Woman in the Pew.” That was in December 2013. I STILL get comments on it, including emails from people who have stumbled on it and want to talk to me about their stories. The top searches that bring people to my blog are “cliques in church” and “feeling alone in church.” This is a huge problem.
Yet I know if I brought it up in my own church, a defensive mentality would be the typical response. “But we have small groups, Bible studies, etc. That’s how people get connected. Those people aren’t trying hard enough to be involved!” (And they’d level a glare at me, because I’ve avoided the small groups–bad experiences–and ladies’ Bible studies–more bad experiences.) Yet that denies the fact that most of the people who commented on the post reported trying very hard to get involved and still feeling disconnected.
I’m touched that the employees at your gym called to check up on the absentee gym rat; that’s what we need to be like as the body of Christ.
Hi Laura, I edited your comment to add the link to your article. Hope you don’t mind.
It seems there are 2 reactions to this concern – either the person totally gets it and relates, or the opposite, does not relate at all and places blame.
Yes, as I’ve likely shared before, we tried for THREE years at one local church to assimilate. We finally gave up. We tried incredibly hard – we were exhausted from trying so hard. When we left, no one noticed. Not surprising, because we had made no real connections or friends even after 3 years. Well, don’t want to get too negative or begin a rant (haha) so I will leave it at that…
No problem. Thanks for linking to my post!
I remember that post, Laura, and how it spoke to so many people who understood from personal experience what you were saying.
I was amazed, appalled, and comforted by the response to that post!
One question I have, though: How can church people show concern for the missing church person, while still respecting that church person’s right to leave the church or small group? If one were to leave a church or small group, he or she would appreciate people showing concern. At the same time, missing church people may not want to have to explain why they haven’t been showing up at the church or small group, since that could hurt people’s feelings. Nor would they necessarily want to be pressured to come back. Maybe the best way church people can handle this is simply to make sure the person is okay, and call once, not a bunch of times.
Another dynamic is the missing person feeling hounded if asked where they’ve been recently. It’s like defense shields go up when the inquiry is in the church setting as opposed to a place like the gym where you saw it happen.
Two of you (Tim and James) have both brought up another good point. I’ve actually never experienced “being hounded” – but I have experienced being invisible many times. I have observed the “being hounded” phenomena though. Some people lack sense here. We are not the church gestapo! Haha.
I think this can be avoided when the church has a proper philosophy behind their small groups in particular. I led small groups for about 5 yrs, and was the coordinator of a small group ministry for about 1 year. If someone new visited the group, we took a casual approach. Meaning that we welcomed them, and encouraged them to try our group for 2 or 3 weeks, but if our group did not seem like a “good fit” for them we would understand – and could suggest some other groups for them to try. Every group will have a different dynamic for various reasons, and we don’t want people to feel trapped or stuck in a group! In fact, fear of being stuck is one reason people avoid small groups.
Andy Stanley’s big church in Atlanta, Georgia takes a similar approach. When a new group begins, it is viewed as a temporary group. The group meets for a certain length of time (I think about 2months), and sees if the participants connect. If they do, a permanent group forms. If not, no hard feelings, and everyone will try again. Stanley has a book on this…No one wants to be stuck in small group hell.
As for personal outreach, I think we can reach out in an open ended way. Simply let someone know we noticed their absence. And leave it at that – open ended – without a direct question as to why they missed. Maybe they will respond and tell us why they were absent, maybe not. We can take it from there. We should pray for spiritual sense and discernment in each situation. In some cases, people need to be left alone, and others may need us to keep gently reaching out.
Thanks for letting me present an essay! (And I think these thoughts can apply to the church in general too. Different churches have different atmospheres, and some people may just not “fit” in our church and we should not make them feel bad for trying other churches.)
Also to keep rambling. I can, it is my blog, right? I once heard a pastor say from the pulpit that you should be able to fit into ANY small group. After all, we are all Christians, and that should unite us. Well, yes, we have our faith in common. But otherwise, ugh, the implications of what this pastor said I disagree with. Some people may legitimately not “connect” with others in a particular group for understandable reasons.
I totally agree. That pastor’s idea is silly; it’s like saying that, theoretically, as a single Christian female I could’ve married any single Christian male out there and our marriage would’ve worked because we had Jesus in common. But we all know that isn’t true. Sometimes people click and connect, sometimes they don’t.
Really good example Laura!!
What’s sad is that I one time heard a Christian lady make that very same point, only she took it a step further: she said that a Christian should be able to make a marriage work with anyone!
Anyone?! Yikes!
On point! Thanks for linking my post, too.
The defensive reaction is something I’ve noticed as well. “Well, people need to put themselves out there if they need to be noticed” or “well I’ve been burned in the past by people who didn’t want me interfering.” And I get why that worry exists because I’ve seen it – people getting peppered with questions about why they missed this or that or why they stopped attending.
But it’s always better, to my mind, to err on the side of caring too much. I’d rather be accused of bothering someone than forgetting them. And I think sometimes we forget there’s a place between “never bothering anyone” and “harassing them all the time.” Sometimes a simple “thinking of you” text is more than enough. There’s not always a need to ask questions or interrogate; sometimes just the noticing and a spare gesture means the world.
Love your last sentence and it’s point – sometimes just the noticing means the world! After we were invisible people at a church for 3 yrs, we are still completely amazed and deeply touched when a pastor or church member simply says hello to us by name in the hallway at our present church. Such a small thing – saying hello and using someone’s name – but very encouraging to us.
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