All by myself:- the clique

How many times have you been invited to a party by a friend and ended up stood in a corner beacuse you don't know anybody and therefore are out of the circle?
In a non-beliving context like that, such things are to be expected.
How many times have you walked into your church building on a sunday morning and been completely out of the circles that have been made?
Or how often when you look around the CU meeting, how people have grouped themselves, into year groups and church groups, while new people are left to fend for themselves and forge together?
I've been to churches in the past where the entire congregation is in it's own groups and I've ended up standing alone at the back. I've been to gatherings where one side of the room has been taken up exclusively by members of a certain church, while everyone else congregates on the other side, excluded.
I lost count of the amount of times that CU members cliqued themselves by church or by year, and avoided all else. It saddened me very, very recently when members of my church cliqued themselves off from everyone else at a party, and indeed at church the next day. It actually really saddens me, for this is not the right attitude for a Christian gathering, a church.

We have to be aware of this. The temptation is of course to gater around your church family, you know them, you love them, and vice versa. Church familes can become very close, which is to be applauded. Church familes that seperate themselves off at CU meetings or parties and excludes any outsiders are to be challenged not to. How can we welcome an outsider and glorify God by living for Him by turning our backs on a non-member of our church?

How can we set apart Christ as Lord in our hearts, if we adamantely cling to our comfort zones and those that we have allowed in, and not welcome new people?!

It is a terrible trap that the satan can use to compromise the unity of the church, and indeed the CU as churches battle to win the most Godly church in CU contest, and I'm afraid it is most apparent during your time as a student.

I'll hold my hand high up right now and freely admit that I am a shy person, I rarely go out to talk to new people at church, and usually mess it up the very rare times that I have done so. We cling desperately to our comfort zones like a lifeline, when, in actuallity, we should be clinging to the cross of Christ, nailing our fear to the cross, and setting apart Christ as Lord in our hearts.

It is not just the church barring the way to outsiders, it is the church within the church. Students, when was the last time you spoke to a non-student? And I don't mean the recent graduate you went to univeristy with up until this year. What about the families, the older members, even the children? And the same to non-students, when was the last time you went up to a student that you don't know, and welcome them?

When? If ever?

A student church like the one I attend is terrifying to a non-student, the gap between them and the rest of the family is massive. I'm even now, having literally just graduated, finding a gap expanding between myself and the students.

We cling to people and comfort, when actually, we need to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Christ. Be it to that terrified group of freshers who have just walked in the door, be it to an older church regular whom you have seen for three years, but NEVER spoken to. Be it to anyone at all, except your best friend who belongs to your year, your course, your church, your comfort zone. I find it horrible to see student church members grouped together on one side of a room, talking only amongst themselves, and not to the non believing, or indeed members of other churches that are sat merely feet away, having to talk to themselves.