Church | Comfort | Concern | Fellowship | Loneliness

THE PLAINTIVE CRY FOR RECOGNITION
I found one in a recent Readers’ Digest that I used in a sermon on the dynamics of fellowship needs within the church. The funny thing was that I had been in virtually the same situation just a few days before but didn’t have the sense the young man in the story had. It seems a family had gone to the movies and on the way in the young man of the family stopped by the refreshment stand to pick up some popcorn. By the time he got into the theatre the lights were already dim. He scanned the theatre and evidently couldn’t find his people. The lady who tells the story says she watched him pace up and down the aisles searching the crowd in the near-darkness. As the lights began to go down even further he stopped and asked out loud, “Does anyone recognize me?” I used the story to suggest that as visitors come into our…