Part of the Club

It was last school year, and I was at the playground with the kids letting them work off some energy in the afternoon.  There were a few other moms there, and I started talking to one.  She brought up a few things about it being her first year there - she'd transferred her kids from a Christian school to ours - and it came up in conversation about kid's sports and the Upwards program.  Once she found out I went to a Christian church, she asked me if I was a believer and I said I was.  Her reaction kind of freaked me out, to be honest.  She grabbed me by the arm, and led me excitedly over to a couple other women and introduced me by name and told them I was a believer too!  It was a little strange, and I've never been able to quite figure out why she reacted that way...

Reading today about the church in Antioch kind of shed some light on that for me.  When Barnabas and Saul went to Antioch and taught the people there - it was the first time people were called Christians.  My study notes tell me that "the young church at Antioch was a curious mixture of Jews (who spoke Greek or Aramaic) and Gentiles (non-Jews who previously didn't worship God).  It is significant that this is the first place where the believers were called "Christians" (or "Christ-ones"), because all they had in common was Christ...not race, culture or even language.  Christ can cross all boundaries and unify all people."

So that's what got me thinking about that lady on the school playground...it wasn't that she was some crazy person after all.  Although I was weirded out by her reaction...she was just really excited to know she had found a connection to other believers in a school full of unknown faith.  She was probably feeling very alone at a new school and when she found the one thing that united us (being believers), she latched onto me and knew we were both part of the same club.