Membership Has It's Concerns

I was part of a discussion last night about what made a community that I take part in, good. What was right about it and was working or firing?

The main idea people kept coming back to was that it was a truly safe place. Not safe in the sense that deals with physical safety. Safe in the sense that deals with emotional and personal safety. The safety you can feel when people allow you to truly be who you are and where no one is trying to fix you. And for some people that personal and emotional safety ties directly into their physical safety, e.g. not having to worry about hate crime.


It was clear that the community is a safe place. But what truly safe places do we have in our daily lives? And are we someone who is making it safe for someone else?

It saddens me that places which claim to be safe such as churches, are not really safe for so many people. They may tout that "all are welcome," but when you get down to the nitty gritty of it, it's just not true. But by no means are churches the only offenders. (I do go to church by the way)  There are social clubs and organizations all around the world that say you are welcome if you look and act just like us.

That doesn't leave much room for everyone else.

Even if you don't meet every week, I think we can personally work on giving people safe places. However, in order to do that, it means we need to be willing to accept people exactly where they are at. We cannot shy away from their brokenness. We need to let them share it and just be who they truly are. At the same time, we do not need to fix them. We do not need to have all the answers. Sometimes people just need to talk, people just need to be listened to.

I'm sure if we all dig a little deeper, we will find that there is hunger for true safety and true freedom as we all stumble along together. If we want to be safe, we need to make sure we are making it safe for others. That we don't put issues above someones dignity or life. That we show each person that in the midst of brokenness they still have great value. That we can show each other love.