It's interesting thinking about wearing masks at church and how inherent that is to being 'normal church' members. Kim and I were talking about this last night. We came to the realisation that this may be the very heart of the change we are trying to make. We had to admit that in our relationships with alot of people, things were kept very shallow, and massive masks were worn by everyone. Yet we were quite a relaxed and
informal church where you would think this happaned the least. The reason we were talking about this last night, was that we were remarking that if you looked from an objective point of view, it seems church can be very distructive to long term relationships. Or is this because we were long term Ministers?
The average Kiwi Christian moves Churches about twice a decade (not often connected with geographivcal movement).
Often when someone 'left' the church all connection was broken (or at least decreased considerably). I think this happens for three reasons. The friends left behind in the old church feel rejected deep down by the person moving, having less in common, and the person leaving being caught up in the busyness of church. I confess that i was the worst at this, which is most probably why I can look back at dozens of relationships that were terminated by people moving churches.
In living in this new (old) way I really am committed to making sure this does not continue on. A rule of thumb for me, is that if someone leaves something like a gathering I am involved with and I feel rejected or hurt that it is a warning sign that what I am doing is getting to organised. Organisation should never get in the way of
relationships.