Onward, Forward, Toward…

I was reading a forum post at a Christian web page that talked about how in their experiences, this person had seen the same level of ‘aloofness, superiority, and arrogance’ in the house churches he visited when compared to the ‘institutionalized’ churches he once attended.

I continued to read the multiple pages of this thread and my interest was further captured when one poster slightly but eloquently changed the direction from the eliteness mentality to how the church treats people who are very introverted and shy. As I read that statement, I felt the resonance occur.

I admit, I contribute somewhat to the introversion and shyness and sometimes I come off as being snobbish or even aloof in nature. I admit that I do not talk much and that my ‘body language’ does most of my talking in the forms of

“I need my zone/space. Don’t get too close to me. If you get too close, the defenses will increase and you turn from friend to enemy”

“Please don’t talk to me right now, maybe next week….. (repeated week after week)”

“I feel very uncomfortable around ’strangers’ who appear to be pushy and huggy and act like they knew me all my life”

Oh no, another Christian who claims to want to be my friend, but has some hidden motive, impure agenda, or some MLM product to sell me.

However, I never took the position of ‘nobody wants to talk to me’ or ‘nobody likes me’ because I knew I was extremely shy by nature.

I was raised in an pentecostal / holiness environment of ‘everyone was out to get us and only us’ because we are the chosen people of God since everyone else ‘compromised’ (and therefore ’sold out’ to the devil). You then graduate to a level of only not trusting the outside world because they are the ‘enemy’; but like communism, not trusting your friends because they are out to ’set you up’ or out to ‘take you to the point of compromise’ and therefore have the ‘potential’ to become ‘the enemy’. You learn to survive by shutting up while walking in fear, paranoia, anxiety, and hysteria that every wrong choice you make (substitute the “Every Breath You Take” song by The Police Here) will either make ‘God hate you’ or cost you your ‘mega destiny of health, wealth, and prosperity’ while you will become labeled as either:

Judas - for betraying them

“Great Satan” - for disagreeing with them

or “Achan” - for doing something ‘wrong’ (they disagree with) that ‘withheld the end-times last-days mega harvest and revival from happening.

We did not ‘relate’, we ’survived’ (barely) day-to-day convincing ourselves that we were the mega victors and overcomers. We didn’t need ‘community’ because Jesus was coming soon (morning or night or noon, many will meet their doom….) We didn’t ‘connect’ because that concept was ‘of the world’ and we needed to be separate from the world.

This combined with the fact that when I was ready to ‘break through’ and come out of my shell that I experienced great amounts of rejection where it appeared that no-one cared what I had to say or no-one wants to hear about the bad week I had in the world of “Positivanity”, combined with a poor self-image/esteem and not being the most physically appealing person (but those ‘David’ analogies in 1 Samuel 16 came by the truckload) really works on a person and in some cases, paralyzes them.

Life was never like a peppy ‘diet coke’ commercial jingle, never like a love song, nor the ’syrupy spiritual songs to Jesus’ heard on religious right radio.

I admit that I am not a good conversation starter. I admit that it takes an enormous amount of mental energy to say a few words and then the conversation stops. The other person has to make most to ALL of the effort.and converse for a while and many people do not have the resolve, patience, nor drive to continue forward. I admit that I seem to be unwilling to carry my part of getting to know the person trying to be friendly to ‘connect’ in ‘community’.

I don’t know how or where to start. I do not know what it takes to make the effort to make the ‘connection to community’ work. I feel like I have to be ‘perfect’ or risk rejection or some ‘eternal wrath’. I do not know how to change the ‘body language’ without appearing that I am ‘lying’. I need that prayer for boldness to overcome chronic rejection and eventually connect to community. I need that prayer to have more confidence and to also be more accessible to others and to have the courage to take the risks needed for connection, community, and relationship even to the point where I need to take the first step that I do not know how to take.