This is the first post for this new blog and I pray it will get us off to a good start. First impressions have caused many people to reject Christianity. Sometimes it’s hard to blame them.
As a young mother, my friend had just buried her little boy. In terrible need she went back into the church, after the funeral, to sit in quiet peace. An older woman approached her as if the church were hers. She said, ‘I’ve not seen you here before. Do you realise these are the pews we normally sit in?’ My friend hurried away.
When quarrelling Christians were in the news recently, another non-christian friend was disgusted. ‘They call themselves Christians. They should know better.’
Author Philip Yancey tells of a young woman, at rock bottom, who rented her two year old daughter out for sex. When asked why she hadn’t gone to the local church for help, she was horrified at the very idea. She couldn’t bear to feel worse about herself then she already did.
Like the prodigal son’s brother, there is a danger that if you’ve always tried hard to be good, you struggle to welcome those you believe are less ‘good’ into your church family. A Christian friend observed that people who had come to faith after making a mess of their lives were often the best Christians. If you know you’re not good enough for God’s grace and mercy, it can be more life changing to discover He loves you anyway.
In Biblical stories God often chose those who failed in some way. In the three years of Jesus’ ministry, He loved the weak, the ordinary, those who were ill or outcast. He set his church up with people who had failed him and who made mistakes. If we are followers of Jesus, surely He should be our ideal. We should be striving to be more like Him but under no illusions that we are there yet.
I know quite a few Christians and none of them are perfect but they are trying their best to be the people they think God would like them to be. For those still on the outside looking in, try to see past the first impression - those flawed people trying to get it right but sometimes not succeeding.
Do you have a 'first impressions' story to share? Or any suggestions for churches on ways to make a better first impression?
