I have a friend who once gave this advice: Don’t tell someone: “You need to go to Weight Watchers.” Clearly, my friend is very wise and insightful. Saying something like that isn’t very kind. Plus, it’s a good way to get slugged.

Instead of telling someone to go to Weight Watchers, my friend suggests making healthy choices in your own life, and when people say: You look good; have you lost weight? – you can reply: Yes. I go to Weight Watchers. Wanna join me?

Now, you still might get slugged, but after they walk away, they’ll at least realize: You’re in the same boat as they are.

You see, when it comes to navigating the sea of life, we ARE all in the same boat together. Nobody is in a position of dispensing answers from a lofty perch of “I’ve-got-this-figured-out, what’s-wrong-with-you?”

That is one of the reasons I love the Church. We’re all in this together. We need each other, because we all have the same need: for God, for grace, for purpose, for life.

This Sunday at Fern Creek Christian, each person who will be there will have an opportunity to say: I belong. In what I hope will be a simple, but meaningful, expression, we’ll add our names to the names of others who are also saying “I belong” – forming the shape of a cross. The visual of belonging will become clear as we see the different crosses take shape. That’s fitting, for it’s the cross that calls us to belong, it’s the cross that is the way we belong, and it’s the way of the cross that shows us what belonging looks like.

So, if you’re a Fern Creeker, come Sunday ready to say: I belong. (And if you’re not, make sure you do the same where you worship.) For in our belonging – to Jesus and to each other – we find who we are. And we find it together.