Mirrored reflections

Do I Project Love Into the World?

I/we have been watching church for almost a year. Prior to Covid-19, we were active, engaged participants, or we tried to be. It’s weird how Covid-19 affects us all differently. Even though we attend regularly, I have strangely felt disconnected with regard to corporate worship. I say “strangely” because I’m not one that necessarily “needs” to feel connected. Yet, here I am.

Watching church at home has given me more opportunities to watch other services. One joy has been being able to watch our church in Montana, Troy Christian Fellowship. We have been able to explore other churches virtually, and we’ve had some family members even visit a church based on those opportunities.

Recently, Knoxville has had some gun violence directed at kids. It seems to be everywhere in the United States. It is in small-town North Mississippi. It definitely is in Memphis. It’s here, too, sadly. This past Sunday, February 21, I watched our home church’s message and watched another church’s message as well. Both message themes revolved around love. Both attempted to reflect the love of Christ. What struck me was that our home church, I do not think (at least, I did not hear it), did not mention these events. Again, there was nothing inherently wrong with the message. To be fair, I could have missed the mention. It just struck me.

Here’s why.

The other church, for example, made a call for unity. It prayed against violence. It prayed for safety. It 100%, without-a-doubt acknowledged what happened in Knoxville.

I don’t know why, but that day made me look around so to speak at our church pews in my mind. Granted we’ve not been there in some time (nearly a year), but frankly, our church is pretty lily white. My work place has been trying to increase efforts to be more representative of its demographics. To do this, it is targeting under-represented populations and taking steps to do better. I thought of heaven. I just don’t think heaven will be lily white.

Y’all, we have to do better. As a Church (capital C), we have to do better.

Jesus preached love. I realize that greater than 71% of the world does not follow Jesus. I firmly believe closer to 100% of the world would agree that we all can love better. Baseball says that .300 is a great batting average. (If you’ve read my stuff before, you do know I love baseball, and Spring Training is here, chock full of videos of balls on bats and gloves popping.) The world says, .300 is not good enough. Even if you follow someone other than Jesus, how could we better reflect the image of Jesus or love for you non-Jesus followers? How can we reflect love back into the world?

This past Sunday had two different kinds of churches (one predominantly white and one multicultural) preach two different messages of love. Neither was wrong in their approach necessarily. Both had messages based on God’s Word. The two had different perspectives on getting encouraging love. One seemed to do a better job of addressing the city’s need, and in my opinion, more accurately reflecting God’s love back into the community.

My challenge for us (you and me—the world) is to reflect love back into the world. It’s been on my heart lately that I simply want to reflect the love that is Jesus back into the world. I can do better. You can, too.

If you’re giving, give. If you’re loving, love. If you’re a servant, serve. If you’re a writer, write. Whatever your gifts or strengths, aim them outward. Reflect love into the world, one person at a time and see what happens.

It’s easy to be anonymous in the masses. It’s easy to say, “That does not apply to me; why should I worry about it?” I’m here to challenge that belief and tell you that it does apply to you. It applies to your children. It applies to theirs. I’m telling you right now if you and I love as we’re capable, the world has no choice but to change.

Let’s go do our parts and watch it happen.

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#Jesus #Love #Multicultural #Church #Change #Reflect