As a kid, I always watched the end of summer with a sense of dread concerning what was about to happen to me. The end of summer meant the beginning of school, and that usually meant a measure of suffering in my mind. Most of my dread was centered around the idea that all the other kids had a niche, a group of friends to whom they belonged, and I would have to go it alone again. This was especially true during free time on the playground in elementary school or lunch period in a high school cafeteria when I wasn’t welcome to sit at certain tables.

I was always the new kid. New kids are targets for the kids who belong to get some laughs about and solidify their social standing with their in-group. One thing that worked against me was my appearance. I was a chunky kid, showing up in husky-sized corduroys that were a source of amusement for the thin kids. Gym class was painful sometimes, like when we were told to do as many sit-ups and pull-ups as we could in a minute’s time, and my count was among the worst in class. I vowed to myself that wouldn’t happen again one year, so I practiced sit-ups all year getting ready. When the test came, I was the fat kid doing wicked fast sit-ups, which became another source of amusement.

Like a prison sentence, I did two years of Kindergarten in Pittsburgh (yes, you heard that right), and when we moved to Akron in my first-grade year, I was the only one in my class who couldn’t read. I remember going to a tutor to catch up, and when I did, I couldn’t stop reading. Reading became a welcome escape to me. Moving from Syracuse to Peoria (8th grade to 9th grade) was an anaphylactic shock to the system. Being a transplanted New York kid, I didn’t take kindly to being forced to learn how to square dance in gym class with what I thought was a bunch of hayseeds. The powers that be also forced me into Algebra I and II even though I had already passed it, and then several weeks later after testing out of it, they put me in 10th grade geometry. I didn’t belong in either class, and I was made aware of that daily.

When I showed up mid-year in my Junior Year of high school, I was shocked to learn there was a rumor going around that I was really a narcotics officer undercover (I looked older for my age I was repeatedly told). My classmates couldn’t figure out why someone would move there in January. I’ll always remember when one of my new friends came up to me and said, “I’ve got to ask you, are you a narc?” Apparently one of the kids who was dealing thought I was awfully suspicious walking by his locker.

I now realize that I probably wasn’t the only awkward child or teenager who felt like they didn’t fit in. Those feelings of insecurity are mostly universal to the growing-up experience. We all know at various times the pleasant feeling of belonging, and we also know the dread of being odd-man out. The back-to-school season brings back the memory of nervousness like an annual migratory instinct.

The background I just described has given me a fundamental way of looking at the gospels. Jesus had an unusual habit of befriending people who didn’t belong, people that he wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with. He wasn’t supposed to get too close to people with skin diseases, but he touched them and even healed them. He wasn’t supposed to be kind to traitors to his country, but he ate with tax collectors where the wine flowed freely. As a Jewish man, he wasn’t supposed to mix with Samaritans, and he wasn’t even supposed to talk to women. And yet Jesus had a life-changing conversation with a certain Samaritan woman at a well.

When you think about Jesus’ mission culminating in His atoning work on the cross, the whole point was to break down a barrier. A sinful person excluded from the Kingdom of God can be forgiven, made whole, transformed and brought in as God’s beloved child because of the work that Jesus came to do and the mission he accomplished. I get the feeling that if Jesus had been in one of my high school cafeterias, he would have seen me sitting alone and then he would have plopped his tray down across from mine.

I’ve learned as a pastor that there are many who don’t feel quite at home when they walk into a church. They may feel like an awkward teenage kid walking into the cafeteria where everyone else has their place but they don’t. What would it look like if churches had eyes for people who don’t fit in? They might be a kid who is facing a continuous barrage of negative comments at school. They might be a person who has been married most of their adult life who suddenly finds they are a onesome in a world built for twosomes. They might be someone who does not look like everyone else – someone with a different pigmentation of the skin, or someone with a disability that precludes them from getting in easily, or someone with a kid who can’t sit still in a pew for an hour (or a minute), or someone who may not think they have clothes good enough to come to church. What would Jesus do? He’d sit down next to them and start to engage them in conversation. He’d offer his friendship, wouldn’t he?

My question to you is what will you do when confronted with the awkwardness of someone who doesn’t feel like they belong when they walk into your church? Will you stay in your comfortable niche, or will you engage and put them at ease?

Derek Russell is pastor of the Hillsboro Global Methodist Church. He loves Jesus, family, dogs and football.