Joy of the Gospel? Why do people at Church look depressed?

Ok let me first say this. If you didn’t know we are Catholic. I love being Catholic and I love the Sacraments ( though I need to participate more frequently)  Some Sundays I walk into Mass and feel like I walked into an episode of The Walking Dead. People don’t look joyful, a lot of them don’t look like they even want to be there. (I’ll dive into my opinions in a bit)

We sometimes go to a Non denominational church as well, ( don’t freak out Catholic friends, we still go to mass that weekend too) Why do we choose to do that? One part of my spirituality that I love and miss from college ( Franciscan University) is to worship the Lord with song. Here in Charlotte we don’t have any worship nights at Catholic Church and the music at Mass makes me wish I was a Zombie in the Walking Dead, yea sometimes its that bad.

(This is my favorite worship band and my favorite song.)

Apart from the music its so nice to see people at these churches being so excited to walk into them and the sense of welcoming and belonging is great. Its like people want to make friends and build community with the people at their church. We have met a lot of good friends at these churches and love the community they have.

So I ask myself: Why can’t we be like this at my Church? Why can’t I build community at my Church? Why can’t there be a sense of welcoming at my Church? My questions to myself is well what are you doing to help build this? I need to smile at people. (although I’m from the northeast and it gives me the hebeejeebees just to make eye contact with someone) I need to say hello and get this…..introduce myself to people I don’t know. I need to show people that we are excited to be there and that there is no place I would rather be that hour then at Church, with them. See we go to church as a communal prayer but a lot of times we go for ourselves. Some weekends it just a check list, I need to do this because Im supposed to keep holy the Sabbath Day. I get it I’m guilty of that too, but when we really believe that God is real and worthy of our time and love then why not be excited to experience His amazing love for me Sunday at my place of worship and share that EXCITEMENT with the other people at church with me.

I know its uncomfortable to say hello to that family you always see and you know they see you. Are they judging me because my kids ripping up the hymnal or bulletin or that they are eating only God knows what, that was probably on the floor for the service before me. Or maybe they think my hair is weird. WHO CARES! Say hello! We try to say hello every weekend to at least one couple we don’t know. This is what makes the difference. Its in the small things. I can tell you this, I think the worst part of not doing this is what if someone came in your Church this weekend and felt like NO one cared that they were there! That feeling hurts my heart. I have felt that at churches that I have visited while traveling. No one saying hello. I felt like it really didn’t matter that I was there. I know God Cared and He was thrilled I was there. But our worship on Sunday’s a communal prayers so this weekend make it one and say hello to someone new.