{"id":299,"date":"2014-04-26T20:59:53","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T20:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cfcmankato.org\/?p=299"},"modified":"2018-12-29T11:19:21","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T17:19:21","slug":"7-ways-to-connect-with-your-church-family-by-theresa-forbes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/2014\/04\/7-ways-to-connect-with-your-church-family-by-theresa-forbes\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Ways to Connect With Your Church Family by Theresa Forbes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\">What thoughts or memories do the words \u201cchurch family\u201d evoke in your mind?<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/DSC0641.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Church congregation\" alt=\"church congregation family\" src=\"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/DSC0641-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a>The back of heads on Sunday mornings?<\/li>\n<li>Friendly greetings as you enter the church building?<\/li>\n<li>Conversations before and after meetings?<\/li>\n<li>Competitive card or board games around kitchen tables?<\/li>\n<li>Picking up trash together around the neighborhood?<\/li>\n<li>Sanding and sanding and sanding sheet rock mud until it\u2019s ready to be painted?<\/li>\n<li>Sharing meals together?<\/li>\n<li>Praying for and with one another?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">What comes to my mind is a lifetime full of memories with God\u2019s family, experiences I have collected over years of following Jesus with friends. There are many, many ways to get beyond the surface level with others.\u00a0 It helps to be patient and remember that friendships develop over time and through making intentional choices to invest in your relationships. One of these intentional choices is finding experiences you can share with someone that will build trust and help deepen the relationship.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #61b649;\"><strong>7 Ways to Connect with your Church Family<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Here are seven ways our family has developed close relationships within the local church:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<ol start=\"1\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Kristy-T.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-324\" alt=\"People joyfully serving the church family\" src=\"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Kristy-T-199x300.jpg\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Kristy-T-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Kristy-T-680x1024.jpg 680w, https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Kristy-T-610x918.jpg 610w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a>Opening our home to others \u2013 meals, games, growth groups, overnight guests<\/li>\n<li>Volunteering to help others \u2013 moves, roofing projects, scraping floors<\/li>\n<li>Helping at church work parties \u2013 serving food, painting, cleaning<\/li>\n<li>Serving consistently at church \u2013 for me right now, the nursery and cleaning the building<\/li>\n<li>Praying together &#8211; calling a friend when I need prayer, as well as offering to pray with them<\/li>\n<li>Celebrating someone\u2019s birthday &#8211; a meal or dessert, a picnic, a party<\/li>\n<li>Offering to give someone a ride \u2013 to church or somewhere else<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">All of these provide opportunities for conversations, a chance to get to know one another better.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #61b649;\"><strong>A Few Relationship Insights<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So that freedom to pursue and develop friendships among us is fostered, it helps to realize that:<a href=\"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Don-M-e1398441291845.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-326\" alt=\"Connecting with Friends at church\" src=\"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Don-M-e1398441291845-199x300.jpg\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Don-M-e1398441291845-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Don-M-e1398441291845-680x1024.jpg 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li>Friends are gifts from God.<\/li>\n<li>Every relationship will not be the same, nor have the same depth.<\/li>\n<li>We are not to compare ourselves with others, nor our relationships with others\u2019 relationships.<\/li>\n<li>It is good to want everyone to have close relationships, even if we do not share as close a relationship with someone as they have with someone else.<\/li>\n<li>It is healthy to include others, especially those new to the family, in the positive, life-giving relationships that we enjoy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">One of the best things about being part of God\u2019s family is that we get to spend eternity together.\u00a0 So let\u2019s begin and continue making memories with one another, and keep opening our hearts to others as God brings them into His family. Getting to really know one another takes time, but it is worth the investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What thoughts or memories do the words \u201cchurch family\u201d evoke in your mind? The back of heads on Sunday mornings? Friendly greetings as you enter the church building? Conversations before and after meetings? Competitive card or board games around kitchen tables? Picking up trash together around the neighborhood? Sanding and sanding and sanding sheet rock [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":330,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[33,31,35,32,30,34,36],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","tag-church-family","tag-church-relationship","tag-connecting-with-church","tag-covenant-family","tag-friendship","tag-making-friends","tag-relationship-in-the-local-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfcmankato.org\/minnesota\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}