Do You Know My Name?

I recently received an email from a person that moved into the area from out of state. This person has been attending the same church for almost a year and expressed how she felt like standing up in the middle of the church service and ask, "Does anyone know my name?" She was confident that if she did ask that question, nobody in the church would know what her name was. Wow...how sad and pitiful that is! How can that be? How can someone come into a church week after week, month after month and never feel connected? welcome? cared for? or for that matter...noticed! I'll tell you how it happens...it happens when we are so focused on ourselves, that we are oblivious to the world around us. It happens when we don't want "our club" to get any bigger. It happens when think that everything in life revolves around us. It happens when we don't have an outward-focused vision. The sad thing is that this is NOT an isolated incident! I remember feeling this exact same way. Our family visited a church in our area last year. The building was great. The music was awesome. The sermon was good! But not one person, made an attempt to say hi to us or welcome us. We spent the entire morning with several hundred people and not one of them knew my name! Either nobody noticed us, or nobody really cared that we were there. Or at least that's how we felt. This must break the heart of God. Of all the places that a person should be noticed...it should be the Church. It's pretty sad when a person can go to a bar and feel more wanted and cared for than the church!

Here are some lyrics from a theme song that I'm sure you're familiar with...

"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name." (Cheers Theme song - by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo)

The sad truth is...sometimes there is more "community" and people get "noticed" more at the bar than at church.

May this never be said of Elk Creek Church! I will fight with everything inside of me to make sure this never happens!