I’m a discouraged Christian. By that I mean, I know I’m a Christian, but my faith isn’t working for me right now. So I’m coming to your church, and here’s what I need:
1. I don’t really feel God right now and I need to feel something. So make sure there is something going on in your church that will touch me emotionally.
2. When you talk so confidently about your close relationship with God, I’m going to tend not to believe it because you make it sound so simple. Let me know you’ve struggled too, but you’ve come through at a better place.
3. If people around me ignore me and act like I’m not there, it’s going to convince me this whole idea of loving one another in Jesus’ name is just a bunch of words and really doesn’t work. If people can’t make me feel wanted and welcomed without being watched and worn-out at church, how in the world am I ever going to get back what I feel like I’ve lost?
4. I’m questioning a lot of the things I’ve always believed; that God is indeed good, that He’s close, that He hears prayer. Don’t just tell me that He does, teach me. Use the Scripture. Help me see and have insights that gain more than the shallow understanding I’ve always lived with.
5. Help me understand why God can be so silent for so long. How can He put up with the pain that so many good people feel and seemingly allow bad people to prosper? That’s your job as your responsibility, not mine while I’m at church.
6. Provide music that touches my heart; that gets through my emotional defenses, because that’s the one thing I can still feel. It still communicates to me. If all of your music is just happy music repeating the same phrase or verse over and over again, I’m not going to get it because I know it’s not that easy.
7. Encourage me. I need it. It may sound like a shallow need, but it’s real to me.
8. Inspire me. That’s your job, all of your responsibility. Inspire me. Inspire me to believe, to embrace God.
9. Give me hope; hope that things will be better, hope that what I am going through is indeed normal; that God is there and though He is silent, He is never still.
I’m a discouraged Christian and I’m desperate. Can you help me?