Dan Czaplewski posted on February 10, 2009 13:37
This past weekend we had a Transforming Congregations Network team visit Shepherd of the Coast. TCN exists to help existing churches revitalize and become equipped to reach their communities. It was a great experience and I found it personally energizing.
One of the “aha” moments of the weekend for me was to realize that guests to our church aren’t looking for a friendly church. I think every church I have ever been a part of thought of themselves as a friendly church. It turns out that no one is really looking for a friendly church.
What guests and our wider community are looking for are friends. That presents a much more difficult challenge. Being a friend is a lot harder than being friendly. More than sharing the peace, being a friend means I share myself.
It is at times like this that I am grateful to God’s grace. I have not always been such a good friend and I have often offered a half-hearted friendliness when someone really needed a friend. The good news of God’s grace is that I have a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Jesus told His disciples on the night He was betrayed by one of His friends: “I don’t call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. But I’ve called you friends because I’ve made known to you everything that I’ve heard from my Father.” (John 15:15) Jesus has befriended me when I didn’t know how to be a friend, even when I wasn’t very friendly.
It is only because of God’s grace that I can reach out to another person with the hand of true friendship. It is that grace that will transform our congregation to transform our community.
If you think about the best human friendships you have enjoyed, I think you know how they have enriched your life. That friend or those friends have made you better; they are a part of what is good in you today. How much more doesn’t that transformational friendship of Jesus Christ change everything for the better?
God bless you, my friend, in that grace of God in Christ.