(Part 1 of 4 in the “Performing or Belonging?” series)
It often goes without saying – we’re exhausted.
Not from work. Not from parenting. Not from the latest crisis-of-the-week. So many people exhausted from pretending.
Smiling when we’re breaking. Posting like we’re thriving. Walking into rooms, churches included, wondering if we’re being judged for not having it all together.
We’ve been trained to perform. Perform at school. Perform at work. Perform in our friendships. Even perform at church. And somewhere along the way, we got the twisted idea that love, acceptance, and community were things we earn by being impressive.
But here’s the truth: Performance-based belonging is killing us. Slowly, quietly, spiritually.
You feel it, don’t you?
That subtle anxiety before walking into a room, wondering if you’ll be enough. That instinct to sanitize your story before telling it. That inner voice whispering, “Don’t let them see the real you. They couldn’t handle it.”
And the wild part? We’ve made this normal! We celebrate “being polished.” We admire the curated feed. We’ve confused authenticity with oversharing and vulnerability with weakness. But deep down, we all want the same thing: to be known and still loved. No mask. No pretense.
But we’ve bought into the lie that if we’re real, we’ll be rejected. So we keep performing. Keep managing our image. Keep walking into spaces like churches, friendships, even family dinners and thinking, “Don’t screw this up. Be who they want you to be.”
Let’s call it what it is: fake community. It’s shallow, it’s exhausting, and it’s not what God designed us for.
Want to know the truth? You were never meant to perform for love. You were made to belong in it. Real belonging doesn’t ask you to audition. It doesn’t hand you a mask. Real belonging walks into your mess and says, “Yeah, I see it. I still choose you.”
That’s what Jesus does.
No pretense. No filter. He doesn’t wait for you to clean yourself up. He doesn’t bless the fake version of you. He meets the real you tired, broken, guarded and offers something this world can’t: grace.
And if grace is real, then performance can die.
It’s time to stop faking it. It’s time to stop trying to impress people we don’t trust to love us. It’s time to build something better. It’s time for real relationships, real community, where masks aren’t needed and performance isn’t currency.
That kind of community doesn’t happen by accident. It takes guts. It takes honesty. And even a little faith. But I believe it’s possible. And if I’m being honest, I believe the church should lead the way.
Not with cheesy slogans. Not with religious guilt trips. But with raw stories, open doors, and the kind of love that says, “You don’t have to pretend here.”
If you’re tired of performing – then good. That’s the first step to finding something real.
This is Part 1 of 4 in a series exploring the tension between performing and belonging. Next up: The Pressure to Perform and why we chase approval like our lives depend on it (because for many of us, it feels like they do).
Let’s stop performing. Let’s start belonging.
Source: www.derrickhurst.org