How many times have you been hurt because that one person never texted you back confirming plans, or never checked in on how you were doing after pouring your heart out to them about what was going on in your life?

Many times, people fall victim to lukewarm people. These lukewarm "friends" are the people who will sit and chat and will not do anything about the conversation. People who deal with these lukewarm "friends" often times feel unheard, uncared for, unappreciated - like they do not matter.

Far too many times we find these people in the Church and this is where bad experiences at church stories start to arise. A member of the church decides to reach out to their brothers and sisters in Christ and all they get is an empty "I will pray for you" and no follow-up.

Now I am not saying, all churches function in this manner and-not all problems within the church are from unintentional people. However, there is a huge trend of people getting hurt through unintentional people.

I've have heard stories of people experiencing this and I too have experienced this as well. In my story, I was apart of a youth group for about 7 years and attended regularly. During my second part of senior year, I fell ill to an illness that did not allow me to go about any of my regular activities. For the first three weeks of coming down with this illness, I did not show up to weekend church services or mid-week Bible study with the youth group and no one reached out to see where I was or how I was doing

I reached out to a friend in the youth group told her my situation and to ask for those at church to pray for me. Still nothing. Not one of the leaders of the youth group reached out. How could a group of people who are called to love, listen, and help oversee an active member in their youth not showing up anymore? Let alone, reaching out? It was as if I was not apart of the community, or, if I was, I was definitely not a valued member.

And for a better part of a year, I did not want to step into a church, and if I did, I was in and out and fast as I could.

I know I am not the only one who has experienced a situation like this. This is just one example of how having intentional members and leaders is so crucial in a church.

Christians are called to love others as they love themselves and how God loves them (Leviticus 19:8 & John 13:34). What does loving others look like in this worldview? As 1 John 3:18 states,

"My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action."

Love is not just listening to someone, encouraging them at the moment and never bringing it up again. Love is continually seeking out someone - just as God continually seeks us (Isaiah 62:12, Eziekel 34:11,16, Matthew 18:12, Luke 19:10).

This means: picking up the phone checking in with people, encouraging each other in Christ, scheduling times to meet with that person, going to that hospital and visiting them, letting someone know you are praying and thinking about their situation sending out blessings to families who are struggling (i.e. making them a casserole). These actions are not to be done only in difficult times, but also in seasons of blessings. This means calling up someone and asking how their week went, how that interview went, how their date went, and so on.

Love means to be intentional.

Church, we need to work on being intentional. The size of your congregation does not matter, the size of a close knit-community of believers is what matters. People should be able to walk into a church and not be counted as a number, but as another brother and sister in Christ - who matters. Not someone everyone shies away from.

We need to love other intentionally again.