Don't Just Believe, Belong

Six years ago, almost everything changed. One lesson from that strange season has stayed with me: faith was never meant to be lived alone.

On March 29, 2020, I stood in the sanctuary of DeLand Church of the Nazarene and preached to what was essentially an empty church. Only about ten people were in the building. We were there to record and broadcast worship for an online congregation because our normal gatherings had suddenly stopped.

At the time I wrote an article called "What Remains the Same?" Today, looking back at that service, I see another question beneath it: What did that experience teach us about our need to belong?

My Neighbor Odbert

One memory from that Sunday has stayed with me more than almost anything else. Our closing prayer was given by my next-door neighbor, Odbert. He was 97 years old and lived alone. At 97, he was exactly the kind of person everyone was being told to protect and keep away from gatherings.

But Odbert begged me to let him come to the recording. He did not have a computer, smartphone, or the ability to stream our service. He had a television, and while church services were available there, those were pastors and congregations he did not know. He knew us. We were his church community.

So I let him come. Near the end of that service, Odbert prayed the closing prayer. He later lived to be 100 years old before he died. Looking back, his plea carries even more weight: in a moment when almost the entire country was learning how to stay apart, a 97-year-old man was pleading for the opportunity to be together.

Watching Is Not the Same as Belonging

Technology helped us enormously during COVID. It carried sermons, music, prayer, and encouragement into homes. It still serves people who are sick, traveling, homebound, or unable to attend. But technology cannot completely replace presence.

A screen can carry a sermon, but it cannot put an arm around you. It cannot notice that you did not show up this week. It cannot sit beside you when your heart is breaking. Connection is valuable. Belonging is deeper.

Don't Just Believe. Belong.

That lesson now sits at the heart of my book and website, The Homeless Christian. It is about believers who may still believe in Christ but have become disconnected from meaningful life in a local church. The pandemic forced many people into isolation for a season, but isolation was never intended to become the normal Christian life.

The New Testament calls believers a body, a family, a fellowship, and a community. We are told to encourage one another, pray for one another, bear one another's burdens, forgive one another, serve one another, and love one another. Many of the Bible's "one another" commands cannot be lived out alone.

What Still Remains?

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."— 1 Corinthians 13:13

Our routines change. Technology changes. Church methods change. But faith, hope, and love remain. Faith keeps us anchored in God. Hope reminds us that the present is not the end of the story. Love moves us toward God and toward one another.

Odbert did not simply want Christian content. He wanted Christian community.

Every time I watch that old March 2020 video and see Odbert there to pray, I am reminded of a man who understood something instinctively: he didn't just want to watch church. He wanted to belong.

Don't just believe. Belong.