In Matthew 25 Jesus famously refers to "the least of these." Much of the world thinks (and believers as well) that it's a reference to people in general and perhaps children in particular. It's not. The reference is to "My brothers" (Matt 25:40). Who are Jesus's "brothers"? Those who have believed and received the right to become the children of God (John 1:12). Christians. So, "By this," Jesus said, "all people will know that you are My disciples ..." What was "this"? What did Jesus say marked Jesus's disciples? What is that key difference between those who follow Christ and those who don't? "... if you have love for one another." (John 13:35) Now, clearly, Jesus meant (and John understood it as) Jesus's followers would love Jesus's followers in particular. Sure, anyone who follows Christ should love everyone around. "Your neighbor" was the standard. But Jesus suggested and John confirmed, "Everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him" in particular. (1 John 5:1) So here is my dilemma. Why is that so ... rare?
First, before you respond, I want to say I'm not asking for a defense. "Well, we do it in my church." Good. You're among the "rare." I'm not looking to point fingers or make accusations. I'm looking for answers, for solutions. And if you indeed are from one of those rare gatherings of believers who do indeed care about each other, you are exactly who I'm looking to for answers.
Let me illustrate my question with an example. At the beginning of this COVID junk I know a church that thought, "This could be bad, isolated and all that. Let's make sure everyone among us is in touch with someone." Good. That's caring. So they gathered a list of leadership and they assigned to them a list of church people to keep in touch with. They called it, appropriately enough, a "member care list." So far, so good. As it turned out, however, evidence would suggest that not all of those assigned to care cared. Contact was spotty. Swaths of the congregation went untouched, so to speak.
Now, let me, again, be clear. I'm not pointing fingers or making accusations. "Those leaders should be disciplined" or something like it is not in view here. I'm actually concerned about those leaders. Something went wrong. Something broke down. Somehow among the leadership of this particular example church there was a failure to demonstrate that they were Christ's disciples. So it is those leaders I'm actually concerned about as much as the congregation that lacked the care they needed.
In my long history of going to church, the majority of my experience has been that it's hard to break into a church. And I've had a lot of experience, moving from place to place, trying new churches, attempting to plug into rather than merely attend a church. Mind you, that's "the majority." I have been to churches that just sucked you in. You show up new and there is a vortex of caring and embrace and if you don't become part of this church it is due to extreme effort on your part to avoid it. But that has been rare; very rare.
My question, then, is why? What's wrong here? And, beyond identifying the problem, what solutions are there? Is it a leadership failure? Is it a massive problem of tares among wheat? Are genuine followers of Christ really that rare? (I don't think so. I'm just throwing out possibilities.) What causes this and what will fix it. You can see, then, those of you who initially rose to defend your particular faith family, I'm asking you. You have a working model. What makes it work? How do we export that? Any help?
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