What can we as a church in McCutchanville do to help to cure some of the ills of today’s world? I think we have the answer from God. For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son to die for us. He loves us that much and more (as He always gives us more than we deserve). Why can we not always love our neighbor as God first loved us? And God always desires a vital relationship with us and we should do this with others.

Science has shown that people who have close friendships are happier, more successful and even more physically and emotionally healthy. And through social media in our hyperconnected culture, it may seem like it’s never been easier to make and maintain relationships. But is that true? How do Americans meet their friends? Who is most likely to feel lonely? According to a nationwide online study by the Barna Research Group (May 2017), one out of five Americans surveyed said they regularly or often feel lonely. Men are more likely to be lonely than women; millennials are more lonely than any of the age groups that preceded them. In the event of an emergency or a difficult time, 69 percent said they’d seek help from someone outside their family. Forty-two percent claim they met their closest friends at work. Only 20 percent said church is where they found their closest friends. Lower-income people are more inclined to be lonely than others, and they claim to have an average of 2.5 friends compared to the average for the general population of five friends.

While people might have hundreds of Facebook friends, true, close friends are decreasing. Perhaps most concerning of all, one in ten people admit that they have no close friends at all. Loneliness is an epidemic in modern society. Why? Perhaps because Americans have bought into a lie. We were raised to believe that rugged individualism was the road to happiness. If I can just have my own “man cave” I would have all the peace and quiet I would need. Or if I could just stay in bed all day, I could truly get some peace in my life. While these might be good to do from time to time, I don’t think that is what we want and need on a constant basis. Will all that privacy really make us happy?

The Lord God said in the creation story, “It’s not good that the human is alone” (Genesis 2:18). The scared, confused, sometimes conflicted band of believers who formed the Christian Church many generations later got one thing right. They stuck together. They devoted themselves to the fellowship: “The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers” (Acts 2:42). The word “community,” koinonia in Greek, stresses the strong “common” (koinon) bond among the early followers of Jesus. What we can learn from those first Christians is that one way to combat loneliness is to keep company with Christ and with those who keep company with Christ.

Friends are those rare people who come to see one another when the rest of the world is in opposite directions. Friends are the people who ask how you are, and then stay around long enough to hear the answer. Friends know your deepest and darkest secrets and love you anyway. Is it possible to find those kinds of friends in church? In our church? Just maybe it is possible. Just maybe outreach and intentional goodwill toward our neighbor can once again foster a unity that our world so desperately needs today.

That curmudgeon of a comedian Groucho Marx said, “I wouldn’t want to be a part of any church that would have me as a member.” I want to be in a church where the Groucho Marx’s of the world will be welcome, a church where love is the constant, grace is the action, and Christ is the center of all that we do. What all churches need to be is a safe place for all God’s children, a shelter in the time of storm, a place of stability through the ups and down, and a place where hope reigns and faith flows. I believe that what will help to combat loneliness in America is for the church to be a welcoming place where all God’s children are knit together and strengthened to become the hands and feet of Christ in the world.

Be blessed and be a blessing to others,

Pastor Greg