Malcolm Potts July 17th 2016 ~ Being 'dropped'

We have had some rather chilly mornings recently.  Thursday was one of them.  I rugged up at 5am and headed off for our usual bike ride.  There were ten of us.  One was a visitor. Though it was cold, by the time we rode from Cottesloe to Bicton I had warmed up and needed to take off a layer. The visitor and I stopped to do that but the group - bless them - instead of waiting, kept going.From this point on I learnt a lot about pastoral care in a church.The two of us were riding into the wind.  Riding in a group is up to 30% easier than riding on your own.  We were trying to catch up.  We were pushing and gasping and bleeding but still we couldn't make up the difference.  In cycling parlance we were ‘dropped’ - off the back, gone.When we did catch the group [by taking short cuts], they were nonplussed, unaware, blasé.  Being dropped is not pleasant.  You are battling away on your own and you lose strength, hope, courage and ultimately faith.  You lose faith that you're loved, that you matter, that you're significant.  It is not until you are dropped that the complete abandonment of it hits you.  When you are chortling on in the group, unconsciously enjoying the 30% easier ride that you're not even aware you are having, you easily pass off the ‘dropped’.  You justify their loss as "too bad", "they'll catch up", "they wouldn't wait for me", "we'll see them for coffee".When we ride, there is often a bloke who notices the weaker ones.  These blessed creatures ride up and down the group re-attaching the strugglers by sitting in front and cutting the wind to make it 30% easier for them.  They are the strong.  It is the strong who are needed to help the weak.Church communities don't normally set out to drop people.  But if you are in the group cruising along, it's easy not to notice those who have fallen off the back.  We drop people without malice or even intent.  Difficult customers are easy to drop.  The early church was dropping people and so appointed the seven leaders full of the Holy Spirit to [metaphorically] ride up and down the group to keep the weaker ones attached.We, as a caring Christian church, have dropped people and blithely gone on our way happy in the bunch.  I don't mean those who have chosen to ride with a faster or slower group, I mean those who have just not been able to stay on board due to age, health, accommodation options, personality and so on.When we are in the group we mostly tell ourselves that the ‘dropped’ have done it by themselves, to themselves, and are happier that way.  We justify ourselves.Today in Acts 10 we will see another example of how people are ‘dropped’.  We will discover that God drops no one.We had a Being Church lunch this Tuesday.  It addressed how we support each other and try and plan to drop no one.  Down the back is a questionnaire we filled out on Tuesday.  Please take one and fill it in and leave it on Bethany's desk.  We want to get better at being church for each other with less ‘dropping’.  Your input helps.BlessingsMalcolm