To See and Be Seen

Reflections: To See and Be Seen

By Larry Hovis CBFNC Executive Coordinator

One of the oldest and most popular children’s games is Hide and Seek. Though there are variations, for the most part, the rules and flow of the game are very simple. One person is the Seeker. The Seeker, with eyes closed, counts to 10 from a position known as Home Base. While counting, the other players rush around to find hiding places. When the counting is over, the Seeker shouts, “Ready or not, here I come,” and proceeds to look for the other players. The goal is to find and tag as many players as possible before they can make it to Home Base. The first person tagged during that round becomes the Seeker for the next round.

In Hide and Seek, players try not to be seen. But in life, most people want to be seen. Sure, there are folks who prefer to work behind the scenes and avoid the limelight. But deep down almost everyone wants to be seen, cared for and loved. We all want to believe that we matter to another person.

Unfortunately, many people in our world feel unseen. They don’t think they matter to anyone else. But Jesus showed us that everyone matters to God. No one is beyond the loving, caring gaze of God.

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:35-36).

At the core of the Gospel is the truth that God sees, cares for and loves everyone. The challenge is for us to believe that truth. Once we believe, we are called to join God in letting everyone know God sees them, cares for them and loves them. Joining God in that essential work becomes our main purpose in life.

CBFNC is devoted to God’s essential work of seeing. The way we carry it out is to partner with churches to help them fulfill their calling to see and be seen – to truly

believe they have experienced the knowing, caring, loving gaze of God; and to see their communities and the world as God sees them. We partner with churches to see students and young adults, who though the prime targets of marketers and popular culture, they nevertheless feel unseen at a deep level in the ways that truly matter. We partner with churches to see and embrace their vulnerable neighbors – immigrants, refugees and others who need housing. We partner with To be seen does not require churches that are struggling, being in physical proximity; who feel their “glory days” are in the past, and who but it helps . . . our wonder if God has forgotten them. We walk alongside fellowship gathers annually them to remind them that to be reminded that we neither God nor their Baptist family has abandoned them, see and are seen as the that they still have value and still have much to offer God’s larger body of Christ. kingdom. We partner with churches to channel resources, in a cooperative way, to support ministries that extend the loving gaze of God to those churches that desire to serve but are often unable to engage directly. To be seen does not require being in physical proximity; but it helps. Just as churches gather weekly to celebrate the incarnation of God in Christ – and experience seeing and being seen by God and one another – our fellowship gathers annually to be reminded that we see and are seen as the larger body of Christ. We have not been able to gather in person since 2019. That’s why our upcoming CBFNC Annual Gathering (March 17-18 at Trinity Baptist in Raleigh) is so important. With vaccines and boosters in arms and masks on faces, we will come together to celebrate the ways, as a fellowship, God has seen us and called us to see the world during this challenging period of our history. We will also look forward to how God is calling us to be part of His project to see the world in new ways, together. We worship, serve and are loved by a God who sees. Having been sought and seen, God invites us to see, seek and love others through God’s eyes. That’s no game, but a project worthy of the commitment of our lives.