Introverts

Christians should be accepting and respectful of traits of introverts. Christianity is one where love for others is very important, and loving others includes allowing others to pursue what they enjoy.

Often people in their excitement to get a group at church going expect everyone to come to large groups and enjoy it. An introvert might not. Being in a big group is usually not fun to introverts. It's often exhausting: It's too much information all at once—an introvert loves to think about each idea, and often feels exhausted after large group meetings and parties where hundreds of ideas are thrown out there.

Even worse is if a person looks down on someone, or if a person is hard on themself, for not constantly going to events and parties, when really it's very often a matter of indifference. There is more than one way to get to know people, and being in a large group doesn't have to be the only option.

A person might look down on an introvert assuming that introverts don't care about people. But that's not true. When introverts are not with people they still like to think deeply about people and life and things. Talking with close friends is something they love.

If a person doesn't go to your event, the reason most likely is not that they don't like you or people. They just might not prefer being in a large group setting at that time. You might love the topic of the event or love being around lots of people at once. And that is good and fine, but you can't expect others to have the same preferences as you. Introverts at times do want to venture into large groups—it's a great way to meet people who might become close friends, something introverts love—so it's worth inviting them. But expecting them always to come isn't good.

Love for Others

Loving others includes caring about what they care about. We need not care about what others care about in the same way they care about things but we should care.

We often see divisions in people for the most strange reasons. You see divisions because people refuse to respect others' hobbies, others' preference in style, others' views on sports or views and interests on many things with no moral aspects.

Interests many times are simply preferences. In many contexts preferences are non-moral in nature. It is human nature to frequently place moral aspects on things which have no moral value.

In the ideal sense what interests others should interest ourselves. Obviously this is very difficult. There is a great diversity of human interest.

Specifically we should at minimum not put down or disrespect what others like. You will see very frequently people dismiss things which they do not care about as boring or stupid.

This is of great disrespect to people. You see fellowship is very difficult when people act as if others are odd for what they like.

You see many people enjoy things which we find quite dull. But it is respect to not view them as odd or unusual for those interests.

It is the nature of the sinful nature of the human heart to judge for the wrong reasons. It is very strange the things people judge others for.

God calls us to judge rightly. And to see things as he does. You see Jesus judge people very differently than the world.

Many people viewed as beyond hope Jesus saw hope in. Many people judged as righteous Jesus saw as mired in sin.

You see righteousness is a response to Jesus as the son of God who entered the world to defeat sin. We need to learn to view the world though faith and see things as God sees them.