For most of us, home is a place where we feel we belong, where we feel comfortable, safe, and accepted. We desire to come home, to family, to a place where we can let our guard down and just be ourselves. That feeling of belonging is so important to all of us, an essential element of living. As children, we count on our home, our family, as the place where we will always belong. But the dynamics of the American family have changed dramatically since the 1960s.
Dr. Brene Brown, a social research professor, recently asked a group of middle schoolers in Houston what they thought the difference was between fitting in and belonging. She said, “They had incredibly simple and profound answers: ‘Fitting in is when you want to be a part of something. Belonging is when others want you.’ Then a young girl raised her hand and said, ‘You know, miss, it’s really hard not to fit in or belong at school, but not belonging at home is the worst.’ And when she said that, probably half the kids either burst into tears or just put their heads down, unable to speak.”
We all need to realize the state of the family in our current day. It’s not surprising that many adolescents are acting erratically across our society if they don’t feel like they belong at home. When they don’t feel they belong at home, they try to find somewhere else where they can belong. We need to create safe, loving, protected places for children. Schools can be one place, but certainly churches should be the first place outside the home that children feel they are wanted, loved, and belong.
In working with teachers, Dr. Brown tells them: “You may be creating the only space in a child’s life where he or she can walk in, hang up their backpack, and hang up their armor. Only for the hour or two hours this child is with you can they literally take that off.” This is an important lesson for all of us in the church to think about each time we are in the presence of a child.
Remember, as servants of the Lord, we are the antidote that can save someone else’s life if we are at full strength, that is, when we are filled with God’s love. But if we let our potency slip, we are less effective as God’s agents of change in the world. We must soak up His love from His Word, commune with Him in prayer and the Lord’s Supper, and allow the Holy Spirit to have His way with us. Only through the abundant love of God in us can we offer that love to the world.
Lord, let us go out into the world each day, primed and prepared with the love of Christ to be your agents of change, ready to speak words of love and encouragement, to offer ourselves in acts of kindness to everyone and even more so to children and young people. We pray that St. Mark would be a place where children would feel they belong. May we go to extraordinary means to offer hope and a sense of belonging to each child—to each person—we meet. In the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Doug