Out of the box... into the circle.

Today was one of those days that I decided to work on cleaning up my apartment. It tends to be the "catch all" for anything I need to get out of the public areas of the Inn and quickly becomes cluttered... As I often do, I found myself throwing all kinds of miscellaneous things into a box to be sorted out later. (Actually, I have several boxes for sorting.) The only thing that the objects in these boxes have in common is the fact that I don't know what to do with them. There's no obvious home for these things in my apartment, so I've bundled them up and will eventually unpack them and try to them fit in, or throw them away, or pass them on to Goodwill... one day, I'll deal with these things as seems fit.

Sometimes I think this is the way the Church deals with people. We don't know what to do with them so we put them in a box and hope that eventually we or they will figure it out. There are many people who I believe get the box treatment; people I think of as being "on the fringe" when it comes to the circle of fellowship in the Church. I'll speak to the issue from my own personal experience as a single person in the "married Church". 

I am convinced that the married Church doesn't know what to do with single people, so they lump them all together and call it "Singles Ministry." In general, the only thing that really ties everyone in the group together is their marital status. Very little consideration is given to the details of individual lives that make up this group. They are single. Shouldn't that automatically qualify them to be in the same box together? 

Here are just a few of the many details that work together to make up the group of people the church likes to call "single" - We have never been married, or are divorced, or are widowed, or are separated. We are in our 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's. We have never had children or are single parents or are "empty-nesters." We are gainfully employed or are unemployed or are retired or are on disability. We hope to marry (or remarry) someday or we have no interest in getting married (or remarried) or we just plain hope for God's best whatever that may be. Our family lives nearby, or far away, or we have no family at all. We are content with the life we live or we are disillusioned because we had hoped for something more. We are unique. 

The fact is, as a single person, I don't want to be lumped into a box with other single people. I want to be able to get out of the box that the Church has designed for me and get into the circle of fellowship. The church is full of circles of fellowship and it is generally well understood who belongs in those circles. My challenge to the Church would be to widen it's circles by learning to be inclusive, rather than exclusive, in its approach to ministry. My challenge to myself is to learn how to be an educator and advocate for people like me who often feel like we're on the fringe. My challenge to anyone who feels like they are on the fringe is to take action; be bold to find your place, rather than fretting because you haven't received a personal invitation. 

As I mentioned earlier, there are many people who may feel like they are "on the fringe" for one reason or another. They don't have a sense of belonging. They can't figure out where they fit in and the Church is ill-equipped to help them figure it out. Do you have a circle? Can you stretch that circle wider to help another in the body to find his or her place? Who do you know that might feel like he or she is on the fringe? An important note: fringe people are NOT mission fields. They are people who want to know that they matter in the Kingdom of God. They are people who want to know that they are of value to the body of believers. They are people who want to be shown that they do, indeed, have a place where they fit into the Church.

^"Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf." ~1 Corinthians 10:16-17

^"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many." ~ 1 Corinthians 12:12-14