A Place for Everyone

The Voice of Zion May 2025 - Editorial --

A recent LLC Sunday school seminar explored how to support students through escort-building and class procedures. This youthwork reminds us that we are all servants in God’s kingdom. And this role of service is always timely: each year, Sunday school, camps and congregations receive newcomers. At each gathering, we witness how adults and children alike serve as escorts to one another – encouraging and reminding one another of the place each has in the Father’s embrace, among the children of God. We pray that time at camp or Sunday school or services is one of love and welcome, that each is a place of being included. 

We are social beings. From early on, children naturally seek their place in the group. This is part of learning to relate and connect. For many of us, belonging to groups outside the home starts in Sunday school, at a place around a table, included in the activities.  

But our fallen nature complicates it. Instead of finding where we belong, we can begin to define ourselves not only by who we are, but by who we are not. We make ourselves taller by shrinking someone else. This happens even among those who do not think they are unkind. 

It can happen in plain sight or just outside the view of watchful adults. Exclusion or quiet acts of leaving others on the margins happens in church yards, family gatherings, and youth events – anywhere children, teens, or even adults gather and seek their place in a social world. It’s not always name-calling. Sometimes it looks like silence or never being invited. 

Some might hesitate to call this bullying, and perhaps that word feels too bold in certain cases. But whether or not we use that label, the result is the same: someone is left out. Someone is hurting. And Scripture calls us to notice. We should cast attention on the ones not included; they need the arms of the congregation around them. 

Martin Luther writes in his explanation to the Fifth Commandment that we are to help and comfort our neighbor in every bodily need. That includes the need for belonging. The need to be seen. 

Jesus saw people that others passed by. He called Zacchaeus by name and went to his house. He welcomed the little children when others shooed them away. He touched the leper, ate with the outsider, noticed the bleeding woman in the crowd. He loved without fear. This is our model. 

To love our neighbor is not a platitude. This commandment asks us to see who is not being seen. To invite someone who hasn’t been invited. Love for all our neighbors is not merely the absence of hostility, but the presence of care. Indifference, passivity and inaction can be just as unloving as outright dislike. 

There are children who cry themselves to sleep after youth events. Some who sit alone on a bench every Sunday. There are teens who wonder whether God’s congregation is open to every kind of person, even someone like them. Often the one who is excluded is not visibly different, but the one who doesn’t quite know how to get into the group, perhaps the one who is not related to anyone in the inner circle. And those inner circles? They can form without anyone ever saying a cruel word. They form through repetition: who sits where, who is always asked, who is never asked. 

So what can we do? Some might feel we can do nothing, that this is just part of life and kids are kids. However, we can help: the solution is in fostering connection, to actively care. 

We must acknowledge the teaching power of example set by adults – children come to see our actions and attitudes as normal and acceptable. If adults determine who belongs or who’s invited based on last names, popularity or interests, kids will do the same. But if we model a wide embrace, if we choose seats and extend invitations with an eye for who is alone, they will see that too. All adults – parents, teachers, camp directors – can show this type of leadership from their place of service in God’s kingdom. 

We can also teach our children that real friendship, precious relationships, may be the ones we didn’t expect – ones that form outside the spotlight, in the quiet corners of camp or school or church life. This escort-building is for the endeavor to our heavenly home. Our prayer is that each flickering candle would stay lit, even our own. 

Perhaps the most powerful message we can give a child who is being ignored, bullied or pushed out is this: You matter. You belong. God made you and loves you; this congregation is yours too. 

And we must follow it up with action. Because saying “you belong” means little if we don’t make it true. Every lamb is worth going after.