From Isolation to Engagement: Building Real Church Relationships

Introduction:

Many feel dissatisfied with their experiences in church.  Many feel their church doesn't meet their needs, or lacks something they desire.  But what if you are missing the point, what if you are attempting to find a way to leave when God is encouraging you to connect and change?

 

Key Points: • Personal grievances about the church, including dissatisfaction with the pastor, worship style, food, and small groups.  Yet are those excuses? • The importance of community is emphasized as a way to heal from personal struggles and traumas. • Biblical example of Moses needing support from friends to succeed in his tasks. • Community plays a crucial role in emotional and spiritual healing, as God designed people to be together. • Healing is likened to a grieving cycle that can become stagnant if one doesn’t seek support. • Reflect on personal growth and the necessity of leaning on others for help. • Disagreements in close relationships are normal, but the goal should be restoration rather than separation.

 

Conclusion: Pastor Chris invites listeners to consider their support systems and urges them to connect with others. For more information on resources or attending church services, visit hff. church.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
- The church isn't meeting my needs.
I'm not being fed.
I'm not really a fan of the style.
I don't really like the pastor.
I'm not a huge fan of the worship.
It's entertainment, not interaction.
It's supposed to be interaction, not entertainment.
I'm not really a fan of the food.
I don't really like their small groups.
The instability of a person who has a foot in one church

(00:21):
and one out the door hurts.
Welcome to the HHP Podcast.
My name is Chris Franke and I am the senior pastor
of HFF Church in Oklahoma City.
Join me and others from around the country
as we talk all things Bible, church, and family.
We may be right, we may be heretical,
but that's for you to decide.

(00:42):
Drop a like, a share, a comment, subscribe,
and let's get to it.
We are all a work in progress.
Some of us progress quicker than others,
and some of us find ourselves in a continued quest
or cycle from our culture, our trauma, our past, our hurts.
One of the hardest things for people to do
is to clean out their closets.
It's to first face, address war,

(01:05):
and talk about their hurts, their fears, their experiences,
whether they're good or bad, and be vulnerable.
Allow the world to continue to work with you
and through you rather than just coming to a place
of I'm shutting down.
It allows us to search the deepest, darkest portions

(01:25):
of the very being of our emotional psyche,
our mental fortitude, our heart.
It allows us to be emotional, to understand, to heal,
and ultimately to move forward.
See, a lot of times a grieving cycle
is actually just a healing cycle.
And so when we get stuck and we're still grieving

(01:46):
over and over again, we're actually just not healing
because we're reopening the wound
and we're doing it over and over and over again.
One of the ways that God has given us to get out of that
is that he gave us community.
See, God did not create us to walk alone.
Literally, the Bible is meant for human beings

(02:07):
to dwell with one another.
And you can tell me, well, I have the word of God
and I have the power of the Holy Spirit,
so I need nobody else.
Well, that's completely void of the entire scripture.
He himself, God, disagrees with you.
He says it's not good for a man to be alone.
Man wasn't alone.
He had God.
He was dwelling with God,
but it wasn't good for him to not have a helpmate.

(02:29):
The Torah was given to a group of people.
The prophets commanded and talked and called to repentance
to a group of people.
One of the most beautiful things
that we sometimes gloss over is that
Moses was told to keep his hands up in the wilderness.
And when Moses' hands were up,
whether it was the symbol of a cross

(02:50):
or it was a symbol of halal praise,
as long as his hands up,
the Israelites would win the battle.
God was working on their behalf.
But Moses, like all of us, grew tired.
And as he grew tired, his hands would go and they would drop.
And as his hands dropped,
the Israelites started to see the battle turn against them
and they were losing.

(03:11):
And so what happened?
Two of Moses' close friends came,
helped hold his hands up.
So the question is, who's propping you up?
Who, as you go through your closet
and you're trying to get out and weed out
your emotional struggles or trauma that's happened to you,

(03:31):
or maybe trauma you've inflicted on other people,
whether that be sinful or it would just be,
maybe it was the tone of your voice.
Sometimes it's very simple.
But who's propping you up?
Because in the end, all of us will be at that point
where we're tired, we're weary,
we long to be able to just rest.
But the Lord fights on behalf of us

(03:53):
and he brings us other people to help.
And so you're not meant to be alone.
You're not meant to walk this life alone.
And that can be in a spiritual marriage
and in that type of a relationship
or that can also be in a community.
But we struggle to walk together.
And it's easier to rally cry around the same thing.

(04:17):
And a lot of times it's conflict.
We have a mutual enemy or a mutual interest
and we can rally together.
But what do you do when you're tired
and you just need to be propped up?
What do you do when you have to prop somebody else up
because they're tired?
Even those familiar thoughts, ideologies,
and relationships can be tested and they will be tested.

(04:39):
Think of your own family.
Have you never had a disagreement with your mom and dad
or your brother and sister?
Have there never been times where those have been strained?
But you don't walk away from them.
Your goal is restoration.
And so there's many reasons why it isn't exclusive
to just one element of your life.

(05:00):
But when you cycle in the trauma drama
and you're all alone,
like you're not doing any service to yourself.
You're actually doing a disservice to yourself.
And so I used to think I didn't need anybody.
I could do it all on my own.
I was super blessed to have my wife and my kids,
but in reality I didn't need it.

(05:21):
And then I realized I've always,
but if you don't take ownership of that,
no pastor will ever be able to feed you
the way you were designed to be fed.
If this podcast has blessed you,
please consider supporting by visiting our website
and making a donation.
For more resources, blogs, podcasts,

(05:42):
please visit us at hff.church.
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every Saturday morning, starting at 10.30.