The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
By Pastor Gary St. Amand, First Baptist Church In North America we live in a world where we prize the individual above all else. You have to take care of number one, we are told. And so we slave away trying to get ahead of everyone else and for what reason? So that we can learn like Elvis Presley said, that its lonely at the top. In the end, even though North American culture has told us we need to go it alone, that we need to take care of ourselves, deep down we all know that one of the things that we desire most is to belong. Author Joseph Myers says this: "Looking for someone? We all are. But who? We don't want to be alone. But when it comes to belonging, we're confused. And our culture is confused. We are together, all alone." I think his words are propheticÉ but it doesn't have to be this way. God's call on our lives isn't for us to be a bunch of individuals who call ourselves Christians. It is to be a community, a people who belong together, who in a very real way care for each other and support each other. In John 13:34 Jesus said, "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another." In Matthew 22 Jesus says "you shall love your neighbour as yourself." Could you imagine neighbours actually caring for each as they would care for themselves? People who would sacrifice something so that they could help meet their neighbour's need? That's the call of God on our lives Ð we don't have to go it alone Ð there is a better way. Christians sure don't always live up to that call but no matter how we have fallen in the past, that is the goal we strive for in the present and into the future. If you are feeling like you are in a crowd of people, alone then I want to invite you to consider finding a community of faith where you can belong Ð because life isn't meant to be lived alone.
