Pass the Basket!
If you have ever scrolled through Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube, or any other social media platform, you probably have come across a post or two about learning how to say no to people, purging your life of people who expect your help or rely on you in some way, or intentionally surrounding yourself only with those people who you can benefit from or be motivated, encouraged, and inspired by. To some extent, we all need people in our life to look up to and be challenged by to keep developing and growing in our walk as we follow Christ, develop financial skills, and many other aspects of life. However, after running into enough of these types of posts, I began to ask myself: If I am always surrounding myself with people from whom I can benefit or receive encouragement and inspiration from, when do I find an opportunity to be encouraging to others? Is it healthy to continue to search for someone who will pour into me, while failing to give to another of what I have already received?
These questions brought to mind the miracle of two fish and five loaves. In this story, Jesus tells the disciples to feed the massive crowd that had come to hear his teachings. The disciples brought to him a boy, who offered to share his lunch. Jesus took the food, thanked the Heavenly Father for it, and handed it to the disciples to hand out to the crowd. As the people passed the basket of food from one person to the next, there was still enough food for the next one, and then the next one, and then the next one, until five thousand were fed and there were twelve baskets left over, full of food.
How does this story tie in with who you surround yourself with? I’ll share another story to make the connection.
A few months ago we were having lunch with a group of friends from out of town. In our time of fellowship, someone brought up the topic of “in-groups” within the church and Christian community in general. We discussed how to approach this matter and prevent people from creating so called “cliques”.
Throughout my life, I have found myself on both sides of the matter. As I mentioned in a few of my previous blogs, I was actively involved in the life of the church from a very young age, giving me no time or opportunity to pursue membership in any “in group”. To be honest, I was genuinely unaware this practice even existed outside of middle school. Then I got married and became a member at the church where my husband was and still is a member. After years of active participation in my previous church, I became the “new” member and found myself figuring out how to fit in to this community.
We were invited to the gatherings and occasional parties of the group of people my husband grew up with, but I still didn’t quite fit in. We spoke the same language, and attended the same church, yet I was quite obviously very different and couldn’t quite find enough common grounds with anyone in that group for a while. A few years into this process, I was informed right in the middle of one of our gatherings that the only reason I got into the “in group” was because I married one of the members.
As I share this experience, I have no hard feelings towards anyone involved in that situation. I understand now that certain things in life simply take time. I am on friendly terms with everyone from that group, but I learned something from that experience: when you feel left out from a certain group of people, whether intentionally or unintentionally, please remember that there are plenty of other people in this world you can reach out to and develop friendships with.
I stopped focusing on the differences with the group of people I couldn’t fit in with, and refocused myself on serving people. My husband played a huge role in this transition. Since he was asked to serve the youth in our church, all of our strength and focus went into hosting young people in our home, spending our days off taking them out to beach houses, mountain cabins, camps, mission trips, and so on. We simply “passed the basket” to the next person and a miracle took place. Today, we are surrounded by many friends within our church body, and countless more throughout the world.
This is where I had experienced the other side of the matter. Even though we never intend to pick and choose who we open our home to, we have been accused of doing just that. We do spend more time with people we do ministry with, but that does not mean we are somehow choosing to keep our circle of fellowship closed to others. Many times we host pastors and preachers in our home. Perhaps, this creates the impression that we somehow are keeping a closed circle of high profile members. However this is not the case.
To answer the question of “in groups” within the church, I acknowledge the fact that sometimes some people do form such exclusive closed circles, making some people feel like they are simply not at a level to be accepted into their fellowship. However, there are also times when that “clique” only exists in the mind of the individual hoping to be a member of some exclusive group. My advice to those who wish to be surrounded by friends is simply this: stop looking only for those who you can benefit from and pass the basket! Keep extending friendship to as many people as you can handle. Don’t get stuck on a small group of people who you feel are excluding you. You can prepare a simple meal and offer your home to someone in the church who has no friends. You can even volunteer to feed the next preacher or visiting pastor at your church. Practice hospitality and you will see your circle begin to grow and your friends begin to multiply like the fish and loaves in those baskets.
