This blog post covers #6 on our list of 7 of church etiquette guidelines: DO NOT: disregard, disrespect, disrupt, distort, distract, DISTRESS, or disturb. This ‘rule’ reminds us to NOT cause anxiety, stress, sorrow, pain, or the like in others. One of the ways to know if we are violating this objective is to think of what ‘distressed furniture’ is. When we do to others what one does to get the distress look, we are probably breaking this guideline. When one starts looking like ‘distressed furniture’ and we are the reason for that, then we are at fault. To produce ‘wear and tear’ on someone else’s life (outwardly or inwardly), whether we do this by direct measures or by creating an environment (situation) that does so, is wrong! Way too many churches are seen as ‘not safe’ because they are toxic to one’s life, soul, happiness, well-being. “Brothers this ought not to be.” Another way to cause distress is to allow someone to carry a burden alone. Whether we are talking about WEIGHTS (like grief, stress, anxiety, hurt, sorrow, etc.) OR WORKLOADS, we need not let anyone struggle along alone. Most churches operate under the “80/20 rule” = 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people (80% of the money comes from 20% of the people). We need to step in and step up to help shoulder OUR part of the burdens, workloads and responsibilities.