Building Trust

Building trust with people is important to establish a relationship with them. If we don't have a relationship with someone through mutual trust and respect, how can we show our care and love to them? How do we know what their needs are if we don't even know them? How can we possibily say that we are genuine in our love and care when they don't even have trust or faith in us?

So it is ironic that most churches advocate for their members to love and care for one another, especially new people, but in most cases, no relationship is ever built before one attempts to show such love and care, resulting in adverse consequences. Some examples follows:

1. A new person attends church for the first time. He gave his details as requested. After two weeks of absence, he receives a phone call from a "leader" of the church. The new person do not know who the "leader" was, and felt uncomfortable during the whole conversation as he had to explain why he did not go to church for two weeks. This experience put off the person so much that he vowed never to return to that church again.

2. A new believer has been attending church regularly for two months. She sees a number of people each week, but only a handful of people actually spend time to talk to her. One day, a person who has never spoken to her (even though that person has seen her around for two months) came up to her and said "Hi, you must be ##. I have been assigned to go through a course with you, so if you are fine, lets come to my place every Friday night for the next 8 weeks." The new believer immediately feels that the person is fake as that person did not express any love and care towards her previously, and the only reason why that person is doing the course with her is because that was the person's role at church. The new believer gets put off by that approach, and finds excuses not to pursue the course, which may have done her alot of good, if the person doing the course with her was someone she knew and trusted in.

3. A person has been attending church for a while, but due to his personality and nature, not much people talks to him. He is a person that needs alot of love and attention, and everyone is too busy to notice that. After a while, he feels disappointed and leaves church. To his surprise, he began receiving phone calls, emails, SMSs and online messages asking him why he has left the church. Instead of being delighted by these responses, he feels that all these people are fake, as they did not show any evidence of love and care when he was there with them, and by doing all these afterwards, he just feels that they are not genuine in their actions.

Maybe before we claim that we are showing love and care towards people, by briefly talking to them or by welcoming them, let us ask ourselves whether we are willing to spend the time with new people in order for them to build their trust in us. Are we willing to develop friendships with them that may require patience and endurance? Are we willing to be disppointed or hurt by them through the process? It is only when we have done these things that we have geniunely show love and care towards others.