In Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 5, we get this great line from Jesus "healthy people don't need a doctor; only the sick people need a doctor." In each of the three Gospels, this has come off the back of a healing of a paralyzed man in which there is a strong link between a physical healing and spiritual healing also known as forgiveness.
My third blog about new people in church is about Healing. Let me be clear here: its both kinds of healing that need to take place. If you've got a family that comes to the church and the Dad's just been laid off and the mum has a got a terminal disease and the kids have got allergies, then you can't ignore that and just attend to the spiritual needs of the family - that would be unloving, unkind and unchristian. But any family in the position is also going to have intense spiritual needs too (not to mention a few questions about suffering and God).
Maybe the new people who turn up don't actually appear to have that much in the way of physical problems. They're DINKs or they have steady well-paid professions in the prime of their life. They turn up for a few weeks and they start making connections and chatting with people after the service - what then?
Anybody who has been in a church for longer than about 10 seconds is going to have spiritual baggage, and probably emotional baggage that goes along with it. Why? Well why have they come to your church if they didn't have baggage? Why did they leave? Why didn't they stay in their perfect little/big church? New job. Ah well no chance that anything bad happened then... but then you have the differences between this church and that, and in the last church they were [ ] and the theology was more [ ] and this is good because [ ] but they miss [ ]. You can fill in the blanks.
Anyone who has been an active member of another church will probably have a few battle scars, a few strong ideas, and possibly even some beliefs that they don't want to reveal. Since there is so much church shopping and sheep stealing these days as the pool of Christians in a post-church society dwindles and the amount of outreach is reduced, the chances are that a lot of new people to your church have had some experience of church and most of that will just be bad.
The "unchurched" in this post-church society need something more than just religious experience and the label of "token young person" to make it worthwhile for them to give up the time and money and coolness that you sacrifice to commit to a church.
All of this is kind of beside the point... Everyone needs the Great Physician (Even Luke). That means that everyone in your church probably needs love, care, help, warmth, TLC, followup and a good bedside manner. New people need this more than anyone in the church, because it takes ages to become regular people, but an instant to become "gone". If Jesus is the Doctor, then I'm thinking we must be the nurses - and yes, this includes changing bedpans.
That means that every new person needs to have several congregation members who are willing, available, trained, equipped, and aware/appointed to take care of them. I have seen lots of services where the new people (sometimes me) are meant to be ministered to by just the minister, which is bad, or they are completely ignored.
If someone was to come to your church with blood coming out of their leg, you'd probably rush over with a bandage and try and patch them up. Why is it that when we see people come into the church we just assume they are okay or we don't need to care for them? Why is it that when we see people come into the church we just assume that the power of the service/sermon/warm handshake/cup of tea afterwards will take care of all their spiritual ailments? I don't know a single person on this planet who does not need at least the question to be asked "Are you okay?" and then the answer that comes afterwards to be pretty much disbelieved, or for someone to look for the opportunity to say "you look like you're having a rough day."
The worst thing is, that we have churches that are full of people who go through the "welcome" and "connect" phases, but then get stuck at "healing". Some of these people were welcomed when they were months old and have been coming ever since. Sure, they keep coming to church. Sure some of their spiritual hurts and ailments are fixed. But then life happens and they just stay in the neediness, or they stick hard and fast to their stoic "I'm okay."
You could take the approach that Jesus is the Doctor, so he should be healing them. Maybe the priest is Jesus' rep on earth and so the priest should do the lion's share of work. What do you end up with? A church full of people who never get properly well, and who mainly focus on their own needs, rather than reaching out, serving, volunteering, evangelizing, or discipling. You can get congregations where everybody knows a lot about the bible, and each one has a deep personal faith, but unless they are involved in the healing process and people get more than just a bandaid, its like anti-cholesterol medication instead of a heart transplant - it will keep you going but you wont get to do star jumps.
The healing comes from Jesus. He achieves this in many different ways, but mostly he is just keen for Christians to realise "Hey Jesus healed me, and now its time for me to give something back." I like the idea of serving as a nurse because the responsibility is God's and I know that he doesn't need me. But I also know that God wants to use us for our own good and for his own glory.
If you agree with this idea that people need to be healed and you are already a part of helping that happen in your church, then you need to find those who have been in the church for a while and encourage them to stop being so self-centered and start looking after the others in the congregation. Everybody needs to grow through the problems that require healing so that they can become effective members of the body of Christ - the sooner the better.
I want all churches to be growing; not because of sheep stealing, or because their version is so flashy so it attracts all the church shoppers, but because people get something out of it, and then invest something back into it.
Cheers
Macca
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