Let Me In, Not Just In The Building

I have recently been communicating with several friends and acquaintances who have been attending new churches. When they expressed their negative experiences to me, I grieved deeply for them. I understood them! I have been there many times because of the numberous moves my family and I have made over the years.

Heartbreakingly, each one of them said the same thing to me. They can't fit in. The churches initially welcomed them with open arms, but then keeps them at arm's length. They can attend and give their tithes, but the fellowship stops there. As a result many of God's people who attend church suffer from great loneliness. They don't feel accepted. They feel out of place, an intruder, and not part of a church family.

Churches today seem almost impenetrable because they are so selective of who they allow into their various cliques, and if you come from another denomination in the body of Christ, you are shut out almost immediately.

Unfortunately church cliques are in every denomination, location, and sizes of churches. There are the super-spiritual cliques, the worshippers cliques of skilled musicians and vocalists, racial cliques, marital status cliques, occupation and career cliques, age cliques, and so forth. The list goes on and on.

Cliques hurt people! They turn people away from church and God. Cliques are based on nothing but pride because people in cliques set themselves apart from the rest of the congregation, shutting the doors for any one new or someone different to enter.

We are told in Scripture to love our neighbour as ourselves, but when churches have cliques, we are loving ourselves only and not our neighbour. Loving our neighbour is the second greatest commandment of God, but churches are failing to obey this command.

"The second is this:

'Love your neighbour as yourself.'

There is no commandment greater than these."

Mark 12:31 (NIV)