As I’ve been back from DC about eight months now, one of the predominant questions on my mind has been how I was going to get plugged into a church given that I wasn’t headed back to G-Comm or to Sun City. About a year before I came back from DC, my folks had started attending San Gabriel Union Church. It’s a mere ten minutes from my house in Alhambra.
To be brutally honest, I was highly skeptical of how I was going to fit into this church. Perhaps it was that I didn’t feel like getting to know new people after switching churches for the third time in three years or so (what with my move from Sun City to DC and back to Los Angeles ). Maybe it was something else. Either of which was a horribly bad excuse. Whatever the case, no sentiment on my part stopped the Lord from working in my life through these past few months of my return to the Golden State and the City of Angels.
I have been tremendously blessed throughout my time here thus far with everyone who’s reached out to me at San Gabriel Union. For one thing, I’ve learned fellowship with the body of Christ is a two way conversation. While there have been numerous people that have reached out to me at the church to make me feel welcome, one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned when attending is that I shouldn’t be coming to look for people to pursue me. That’s passive on my part and it’s wrong. As a Christian, I myself am to take an active part in pursuing Christians for their edification, both young and old. I’m to look for ways to serve the body with the gifts that the Lord has given me and to use them to bless others for the building up of Christ’s bride (The Church).
Speaking of blessings, I’ve been splashed with a refreshing example of this in my life recently at San Gabriel. The word “hospitality” pretty much sums this up in two ways.
For one, my folks have really taken it upon themselves to host people from our church on a weekly basis as a group of believers who eat, gather around the Word, and to pray for one another. Their inspiration for doing this is the church as exemplified in the book of Acts. Throughout the whole time that this weekly fellowship with the saints has taken place, many (including myself) have been blessed as we’ve all seen prayer answered and the willingness of the saints to minister to one another in practical ways. Everyone comes ready to give of themselves, a true Christ-like attitude.
For another, there is a certain couple (good friends of mine) at my church that have really taken it upon themselves to host some of us young people at their house to spend the day after church in some relaxation and good conversation at their house. This was my second week hanging out with them and it was a blast. The servant attitude in feeding a bunch of young guys chili with cream soda and edifying each other is something that I want to replicate in my home, both now and in the future when I have my own family.
What I’ve learned in my first eight months at a new church is that the Lord’s body is the ground zero of true hospitality. If more non-believers saw this side of Christians, they’d have a harder time of finding “legitimate” excuses to reject the gospel. It’s time for Christians in churches everywhere to step it up a notch and to go back to the drawing board of hospitality.
The Guzman Express 