Actions speak louder than words!

I am sitting here at the computer contemplating what I am about to write. I am wondering if anyone will read it, and if they do, if they will understand it in the way that I am feeling it. I am fairly certain that the majority of my blogging buddies have been raised in similar surroundings as I have myself, so those are the people that I am addressing in this little soap box that I am about to get on. As I mentioned in an earlier post, most of the people that I hang out with are non-christians. I also mentioned that I have been feeling really heavy hearted about being able to show them Christ. They are very turned off to even the mention of spiritual things. The very next week, after that post, I went out to dinner with a couple of friends and amazingly enough, the conversation turned to spiritual things. I want to tread carefully here, but I have to say, I was incredibly saddened and angry at the stories that I heard that night. To my utter shock, both of them were raised in fairly conservative churches. I was so surprised, I couldn't hide it from them, and then they started talking about their experiences growing up in the church. One friend told how her parents sacrificed so much to give to the church and then it ended up that someone had been stealing from the church, she also remembers how they would have potluck dinners and one lady would stand guard over her crock pot of potatoes and you would enter her black list if you took any potatoes from any other crock pot. She talked about the way people fought with each other, how they argued over things like carpet colors and decorations. She said that eventually the church went in 5 different directions and her parents never went to church again. I can't even remember all the things that she told me, but unfortunately I have heard similar stories too many times from too many other people. Then my other friend started to talk about her experience, how her parents didn't dress her like all her "conservative" friends and she went to public school, so the parents in the church didn't want their kids hanging out with her because she was a "bad" influence. She said she was so confused by that, since she was a really good kid. She remembered wanting to go on a youth trip, and how the pastor basically discouraged her from going and then finally told her dad that she "needed to have a "C" average to go." My friend was practically a genius and had always had straight "A's", but remembers to this day how rejected she felt by that pastor and her church, overall. I think you all can imagine where I am going with this. There was plenty more that they had to say, but I'll spare you all the gory details. My point and the reason for this soapbox is this....The church is supposed to be a safe place, a beacon of hope, love, and togetherness. It is for fellowship with our Christian brother. It is for the spreading of the gospel. Not for leaving children with the impression that it has left on my friends! The image of selfishness, foolish pride, greed, murmurings and complainings, grudges and the inability to accept people that look different or maybe do things differently than we think they should. I was flooded with the knowledge that some of our churches are going to have a pretty big price to pay on Judgment day. I know that no church is perfect, nor will there ever be one that is. I also know that each individual is responsible for his or her own salvation. But I have heard these stories and seen them played out over and over and over and over. I have felt rejection in my own life from something similar, and so has quite a few people close to me. ENOUGH! Maybe if we would obey Scripture and "set our minds on things above" the color of the carpet or who eats your potatoes, or what someone wears, won't matter so much. Is it worth it to hold onto our "rights", when it might mean the soul of someone else? If someone has wronged you, is it worth someone's soul to hold a grudge? In the long run, would it really hurt you, that much, to say your sorry, even if you don't think you were the one in the wrong? Isn't that what it is all about? Saving the lost? Doesn't the Bible have something to say about "loving your nieghbor as you would yourself?" You see, as a church, people are watching us all the time, they are seeing how we interact and when our actions don't hold up to Scripture and what we say we believe, it convinces them, that it is all a farce. When pastors preach the Bible and then don't live up to their own preaching, it gives them a pretty powerful excuse to walk away and never look back. On the contrary, when God is preached and love and acceptance is shown, souls are changed, forever! I was happy to tell them, that church doesn' t always have to be that way, and that I loved the church that I grew up in. I was able to tell them that I had a pastor whom I loved and still do to this day. I was able to tell them that my church became my extended family. I was blessed with so many friends and "family" that I would not have had otherwise. Those people that were my family, growing up, are still my family today. People like, Jo and Gary, Larry, Bro. and Sis. Eldred, Linnie and Dorothy, Mr. and Mrs. Coxon, and so many others who have had a profound interest in my life and helped to shape me into the person I am today. That is what makes a church great. My dad was one of those "outsiders" who found God through the church that I grew up in. Do you think he would have stayed more than a minute if he felt rejected or saw people fighting over the petty things that people fight over? What if he had found out that some people wouldn't let their kids be around him because he didn't look like they thought he should look? I think he would have headed out and never turned back, and I can only imagine what my life would have been like, then. Thank God, there were some people who were bigger than pettiness and helped to influence my Dad for Christ. I said all that to say this.....the next time someone offends you, or someone does something you don't like, or someone hurts your feelings (because lets be honest...its going to happen), just remember, there are souls who are going to be influenced for ETERNITY, by how YOU react. (disclaimer: this message is as much to me as to anyone else)