Involvement:

I want to address a very serious 'issue' today.  Most people say there is a crisis with the church today, a crisis of involvement (lack there of, specifically).

Whether there is or is not a crisis, what that means, the pros and cons, causes, affects, etc. will make for other topics on other days.  Today I want to address an issue I have the general complaint of it and some attitudes towards "fixing" it.

Here's usually how this goes.  At some given event (a retreat, a lock-in, a Sunday morning service, a Wednesday night class, etc) the attendance or active participation wont be what someone deems as ideal.  The following statement is usually made "they just need to get more involved" or, here's the big one, "how do we make them more involved?"
It's that question that I want to address today.

You don't.

We don't 'make someone get more involved" we get more involved with them!

If you want someone to be an active participant, they must feel like they have a vested interest in what ever it is that's taking place.  In order for that to happen, those people have to feel 'involved with' - they have to feel loved, feel appreciated, feel understood, feel important, feel safe.

If you want someone to get more involved (in whatever You're doing) then we must first get more involved with them, asking nothing in return.  We have to get into their lives, their kid's lives, their homes, their pain, sadness, grief, happiness, and passion.  We have to meet them where they are, wherever that is - we have to go to their ball games, their houses, their dinners if we ever want them to come to ours (church).  WE are the church... let's Go and Live it!

It's old, it's cliche, and it's 100% true, no matter how old, how young, how rich, how poor, how educated, how ignorant -  'They will never care how much you know (or what you have to say, or what program you want them involved in, or, or, or) until they know how much you care.