WHEN IT'S TIME TO GET NOSEY

As part of my wife's ministry, on a small scale, she takes care of printing personalized birthday and anniversary cards for members of our Adult Bible Fellowship class. All the other members sign the cards with a brief note. People seem to appreciate them and CQ enjoys making them.

We have three couples who have dropped out of our class and our worship services. I suggested we send Christmas cards to them with words of love and encouragement. I signed one of the cards while my wife signed the other two.

I simply wished them a Merry Christmas and great 2008 and told them we really missed them in our class.

But I'm thinking I should have written more, or more to the point. It should have gone like this:

Dear friends,

Where have you been and what are you thinking? Why did you decide to leave our church and not attend another? Do you think God would approve? I'm certainly not judging nor condemning, even though it may sound that way. We want you back. And not for selfish reasons that we want a larger class. We just miss you and are calling you out. If there is anything any of us can do to help, please let us know. We never want to cause or see a Christian brother and sister stumble, but if you have, then we're offering a hand to help you get back to where you belong. In Christ's love, T and CQ

That sounds way too harsh. I think it's the way scripture tells us how to deal with Christians who have sinned, but I'm glad I didn't write that. Somewhere in between. That's where the answer is. Somewhere in between what I wrote and what I wanted to write.