Membership and Belonging: There Is a Difference

I’ve joined a lot of groups in my lifetime. You probably have, too. It seems to be encouraged and expected. When you’re young, you join groups like Pioneer Girls, or Scouts, or Awana—maybe it’s mostly because your mom signs you up, but maybe also because you have an interest. In high school, you have sports or theater or choir or, if you’re me, the Shakespeare Troupe. And while you definitely have more say in what you join and why, there’s still the inherent understanding that you have to join something. Groups are where you’re supposed to find your tribe.

The trend continues in college and as you move into adulthood. And if you’re anything like me, after several years you might start to realize that membership in all these groups isn’t satisfying the ache that urges you to join. Because, more than likely, one of the key reasons you join a group is because you’re looking for a place where you feel like you belong. A place where you’re surrounded by like-minded people. People who get you.

Belonging. If you Google “definition of belong,” you’ll find the phrase, “to be rightly placed.” Isn’t that exactly what we all want? To find a group of people wherein we are rightly placed? It seems natural, then, that joining groups of people with similar interests would lead to a sense of belonging. And yet…it doesn’t. Not always.

How—and why—that happens is a question I wrestle with constantly. When I’ve asked other members of a group (the ones who look like they belong, the people everyone appears to know and love), the standard advice seems to be, “Volunteer! That will get you plugged in faster than anything else you could possibly do.” So I have. Now, like the man on TV, I’m not only a member, I’m the president.

And yet I still don’t feel like I belong.

The more I try to be involved in groups (particularly groups of women), the more I realize I don’t fit the “standard,” accepted mold. I do not squeal, I do not make finger hearts (or their digital equivalent), and I’d much prefer to be addressed by name rather than “girl,”  “friend,”  “girlfriend,” or the like. If we could apply computer terminology to me for just a second, I’d say I’m a WYSIWYG (pronounced “whiz-e-wig”)—which stands for What You See Is What You Get. Except that’s not entirely true, because I also think I’m a lot like Dr. Who’s TARDIS—unassuming and, let’s be honest, not all that interesting on the surface, but bigger, so much bigger, on the inside.

I feel like this is a problem I’ve wrestled with my entire life, and like maybe it’s a problem that everyone, to some extent, struggles with at least once. I’ll be honest: I don’t have all the answers, but I have some suggestions that were hard won through experience. Maybe if I share mine, you can share yours, and together we can figure out a way to start heading toward a solution.

The first response I tried isn’t one I recommend, but it’s probably the first one everyone tries. I withdrew to lick my wounds. I tried to say I didn’t care, or I told myself the people I didn’t fit in with weren’t worth knowing anyway. Really, though, you can’t survive inside if you’re feeding yourself those kinds of lies. Because I did—still do!—care. It hurts to perceive rejection from a group of people you feel should embrace you. And the fact of the matter is, I joined that group for a reason, so those people? They’re totally worth knowing. No amount of pretending otherwise is going to change that or take the sting out of feeling like you don’t fit in. Persisting in believing otherwise will just turn you into a hard, bitter shell of a person. Coming back from that is hard, hard work. Take my word for it.

The next thing I tried was also a failure and left me every bit as miserable. I tried to change who I was, to become who I thought they wanted me to be. For one group, I wore slacks and polos and nice blouses for over a year. I was self-conscious and uncomfortable. For another group, I tried to gush about how hard it was to be home with my kids and how much I looked forward to getting away from them. But I love being at home. I love spending every minute of every day with my boys. And I’m dreading the days when they’re no longer underfoot—even on the days when it’s crazy and I’m frustrated and contemplating a solo vacation to Aruba. At the end of the day, these experiences left me not only missing a sense of belonging, but frustrated with myself and who I was trying to be.

So what next? Here we are, at the crossroads of persistence (If at first you don’t succeed…) and insanity (trying the same thing over and over while expecting different results). In my heart, I want to belong with a group of people I can see and touch and have two-way conversations with in person or on the phone. A group of people that isn’t made up of family members (as much as I love them and as wonderful as they are).

But. After talking with people who appear to have found a place to fit in and yet don’t have Jesus, I’ve discovered they’re still looking for a place to belong, too.

I slowly began to understand the truth: My need to belong can only be completely satisfied by Jesus. Other people will never give me the deeply rooted, unswerving sense of belonging I crave. And that’s hard to accept sometimes, which means I’m going to keep joining groups, and I’m going to keep looking for connections where I can find them. I believe they’re out there as firmly as I believe God created us to be in community. In the process, hopefully I’ll stop mistaking membership for belonging. Because God made me a unique creation, and the only place I’ll ever truly belong is at His feet.

Elizabeth Maddrey is an author of several contemporary Christian romance novels. She is also a wife, mother of two amazing boys, Awana Commander, and beloved daughter of the King. Though her PhD in Computer Science does little to help her succeed in any of those tasks, she owns her nerddom just the same. She blogs at elizabethmaddrey.com.