I Don't Belong Here--No, Wait, Yes I Do!

This article was originally published here, on October 17, 2008.

Have you ever had the feeling that you didn't belong? Maybe you were at a large social gathering filled with people you didn't know or a family gathering filled with people, although related to you, you still didn't know. Maybe you walked down the halls of your school without a group to call your own. You feel like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.  I often struggle with the feeling that I don't belong. I get into a social situation for which I feel ill equipped and that old nagging sensation begins. Somewhere in my mind the voice begins, "You don't belong here." Sometimes the feeling becomes very intense and very persistent. Sometimes I am able to ignore it and rise to the occasion.

I am afraid, however, that there are many people who have this same feeling when it comes to the family of God. As they enter into a gathering of God's people they begin to feel that they don't belong. Sometimes it is a misunderstanding on their part. They may not know the gospel or have a full understanding of it, and this lack of knowledge is used by Satan to convince them they don't belong.  Sometimes even believers have this feeling. There may be sin in their lives keeping them from enjoying the fellowship. Sometimes it is simply an innate shyness that hinders the process of developing meaningful relationships.

However, there are times that this feeling is brought on, intentionally or unintentionally, by the reaction of church members. There are times when a guest enters a church meeting only to be greeted with a cool silence and wary stares. We follow an order of service that is insider driven without giving much thought to how others may come and join us. I am not saying that we need to build our services around the perceived desires of our guests. Our practices need to be driven by the Scripture, not by personal preferences.

When a guest enters our facilities we welcome them with a handshake and smile. We could even offer to sit with them or ask them to sit with us. We can offer to explain the order of service, invite them out to eat after the church or to check out our Sunday School or other services. We want everyone, guest and member, to feel like they belong. If there was ever a place that anyone should be able to feel a sense of belonging, it should be the church.  I say all of this in order to say that we need to recapture the sense of belonging to the family of God. If a person has believed in their heart that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who became a man, lived a sinless life, died on the cross in their place to take away the penalty of sin; rose again on the third and is now ascended to heaven as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, they belong to the family of God.

There is a real difference between belonging and being worthy. Are any of us worthy of the honor of being called the children of God? If by "worthy" you mean that there is some merit within us that makes God approve of us and thus accept us, then the answer is no. No, we are not worthy. I am not saying that we don't have worth in the eyes of God; we do. What I am saying is that we are hopeless, helpless sinners in need of a savior. Jesus is that Savior.  Yet, in spite of our imperfection and sinfulness, if we believe with our hearts that God raised Christ from the dead and confess with our mouths that "Jesus is Lord"; we belong in the family of God. We belong because God has declared it. We belong because God has adopted us, he has made us born from above, and he has called us his children.  The next time you get that feeling that you don't belong look that lie right in the face and tell it the truth, "I belong to God through my trust in my Savior and my Lord, Jesus." Through his grace you will always belong, because he loves you. And no, we are not worthy of such love, but by God's grace we still belong.

Sense of Belonging

Have you ever had the feeling that you didn't belong somewhere? I'm not talking about being some place you shouldn't be, like a bar or a crack house. I am talking about being with a group of people and being made to feel like you are an alien. I can't count the times that I have had that feeling. Sometimes, it feels as if most of my youth was spent in a quest for unachievable belonging. I realize that is an exaggeration, but feelings are often difficult to shake.

It is one thing to be gathered with complete strangers and yearn for some sense of belonging, but to be gathered among family and to feel you don't belong is another. It is painful to look in the face of someone you know and to see a lack of acknowledgment. Or to be standing within arms length of a "loved" one, and they won't move to acknowledge you.

Now, let's take this sense of belonging into the church. Someone from our community comes in to our worship gathering. How do we respond to their visit? Do we greet them with welcoming arms? Do we acknowledge their presence and worth? Do we let them know that we have a place for them among us? Or do we coldly look the other way? Do we stand at arms length and fail to make a move to welcome them?

The church should be a place where people feel like they belong. The non-believer should be welcome in our services, in our homes, and in our lives. They shouldn't be the driving influence in how we do worship or how we live, because that place belongs to Jesus. Our love for Jesus should shape our worship and lifestyle. But to be like Jesus, we need to befriend the non-Christian.

However, it is even more important that believers feel like they belong. Christ and his apostles continually remind us that the church is a family. They are a family with one Father; they are a family with a Brother who has redeemed them. They are a family made up of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. They are socially, culturally, and economically diverse, but every believer belongs.

Are there people in our churches that are slipping through the cracks? Have they sat in our pews, but felt like an alien or an outsider? Maybe its time we make a move to include them, to acknowledge them, to love them. Maybe we need to embrace them and tell them they belong before its too late and they drive off never to return.

I Don't Belong Here--No Wait, Yes I Do

Have you ever had the feeling that you didn't belong? Maybe you were at a large social gathering filled with people you didn't know or a family gathering filled with people, although related to you, you still didn't know. Maybe you walked down the halls of your school without a group to call your own. You feel like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.

I often struggle with the feeling that I don't belong. I get into a social situation for which I feel ill equipped and that old nagging sensation begins. Somewhere in my mind the voice begins, "You don't belong here." Sometimes the feeling becomes very intense and very persistent. Sometimes I am able to ignore it and rise to the occasion.

I am afraid however that there are many people who have this same feeling when it comes to the family of God. As they enter into a gathering of God's people they begin to feel that they don't belong. Sometimes it is a misunderstanding on their part. They may not know the gospel or have a full understanding of it, and this lack of knowledge is used by Satan to convince them they don't belong.

Sometimes even believers have this feeling. There may be sin in their lives keeping them from enjoying the fellowship. Sometimes it is simply an innate shyness that hinders the process of developing meaningful relationships.

However, there are times that this feeling is brought on, intentionally or intentionally, by church members themselves. There are times when a guest enters a church meeting only to be greeted with a cool silence and wary stares. We follow an order of service that is insider driven without giving much thought to how others may come and join us. I am not saying that we need to build our services around the perceived desires of our guests. Our practices need to be driven by the Scripture, not by personal preferences.

What I am suggesting is that when a guest enters our facilities that we welcome them with a handshake and smile. We may even offer to sit with them or ask them to sit with us. We can offer to explain the order of service, invite them out to eat after the church or to check out our Sunday School or other services. We want everyone, guest and member, to feel like they belong. If there was ever a place that anyone should be able to feel a sense of belonging, it should be the church.

I say all of this in order to say that we need to recapture the sense of belonging to the family of God. If a person has believed in their heart that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who became a man, lived a sinless life, died on the cross in their place to take away the penalty of sin; rose again on the third and is now ascended to heaven as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, they belong to the family of God.

There is a real difference between belonging and being worthy. Are any of us worthy of the honor of being called the children of God? If by "worthy" you mean that there is some merit within us that makes God approve of us and thus accept us, then the answer is no. No, we are not worthy. I am not saying that we don't have worth in the eyes of God; we do. What I am saying is that we are hopeless, helpless sinners in need of a savior. Jesus is that Savior.

Yet, in spite of our imperfection and sinfulness, if we believe with our hearts that God raised Christ from the dead and confess with our mouths that "Jesus is Lord"; we belong in the family of God. We belong because God has declared it. We belong because God has adopted us, he has made us born from above, and he has called us his children.

The next time you get that feeling that you don't belong look that lie right in the face and tell it the truth, "I belong to God through my trust in my Savior and my Lord, Jesus." Through his grace you will always belong, because he loves you. And no, we are not worthy of such grace, but thanks to God we still belong.