Message of faith: Church creates relationships

Often when we move away from home for the first time, we feel both excitement and home­sickness. In these times, it is important to remem­ber that we are not alone.

Several months ago, I was in the public library of Olathe. I was obvious­ly and loudly amused at something I was reading, which drew the attention of a stranger sitting near me. He was using his laptop on the library’s public Wi-Fi service just like I was. We started up a conversation and found we had similar in­terests and backgrounds: we were both tech geeks, though he did it profes­sionally while I am more of a hobbyist.

I can’t even remem­ber his name. I don’t believe we talked for more than 15 minutes, but he asked if he could pray for me. Despite not knowing much more than my name and that I was looking for work, the prayer spoke to my needs and it was a very moving experience. I felt a sense of true kinship with someone I had nev­er met, and likely will never meet again.

Approaching a stranger with your faith on your sleeve can be a risk in some ways. When he asked if he could pray for me, he didn’t know my reaction.

He approached me be­cause he believed that it was what God wanted him to do. When he found that we shared the same faith, the en­counter stopped being an interaction between strangers and became one brother helping another. This is what Christians should al­ways be to each other; we should act like family.

The early church as described in the book of Acts is a group of people who treated each other like a family.

The apostle Paul, one of the founders of the early church and the greatest expounder of Christian theology, referred to his student Timothy as his son in the faith. Chris­tians are referred to as brothers and sisters.

What many people fail to grasp is that the church is not merely a social movement, a club or an organization of people with similar inter­ests. When the people of God are acting according to God’s calling, a church is a family with millions of members around the world. As a Christian, I have brothers and sisters of every race, culture, language and nation.

I can never be away from home far enough to be away from family.

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