In a day and age where everything is becoming automated, artificially enhanced, and computer-generated and run, we have a responsibility as the Church to be uniquely personal. Church, we are the extension of the body of Christ. We are supposed to be His hands and feet, but if we are just as the world is—cold, corporate, computer-run, and content-driven—we will be deemed irrelevant by a culture that is starving for human contact.
There are two stories that come to mind when considering how we can be uniquely personal. The first is the woman who has been bleeding for years. I wonder how many doctors dismissed her or how many men who didn’t understand her unique needs as a woman overlooked her, belittled her, or prevented her from getting the help she needed. In the midst of a crowd of people, Jesus realizes that someone has touched His robe and stops and turns to look at her. His disciples try to discourage Him from stopping. With the crowd pushing from every side, anyone could have touched His robe.
But this is not the way of Jesus; He insists on stopping. I am sure they had somewhere to be, a schedule to keep. The sun might have been getting lower. Traveling in darkness wasn’t just an inconvenience; it was dangerous. But Jesus insists on stopping to notice the person who did not want to be noticed, to see the person who thought she was invisible. That, Church, is our call as well as we seek to be like Jesus.
Another story that comes to mind is the story of Samuel and David. God has informed Samuel that a new king will rule over Israel. In following God’s leading, I am sure Samuel felt the weight of the responsibility to anoint the next King of Israel. Even for all of Samuel’s closeness with God, he judges each of Jesse’s sons from a human perspective. He considers the standard earthly measures that are so easily at the front of our minds. But for every person he thought might be God’s chosen person, God was like, “nope, not him.” God’s choice for the next leader for Israel is not who Samuel would have even chosen.
In the church, do we expect people to conform to the standards or expectations we have, or do we look for the unexpected thing God might be doing? Do we look for people to just check all the right boxes, or do we ask God’s Spirit to lead? In the church we have the opportunity to be personal. Just as God formed all things in creation with His own hands and breathed life into them, we have the ability, in an increasingly corporate, automated, and artificial world, to be uniquely human. To be human is to be like God intended, made in His image, personal in the way Jesus was, and to avoid the traps of convenience.