The Place Where you Belong

 As I mentioned in a previous post, at Annual Conference this year, Michael Beck, who is the Director of Fresh Expressions for the United Methodist Church was the guest speaker for our educational time.  

Among the information he shared, was a focus on compassion. He reported that we are living in an epidemic of isolation and loneliness.  We as the church have the gift to offer: a communal life in Christ. People are longing for that gift. And yet, 1 in 3 people have experienced religious trauma. He theorizes that we are having a crisis of compassion in the church. We don't offer wholeness or belonging.

Soon after Michael Beck's presentation, we heard the song "Well Done" by the Afters.  Here is the chorus:

Well done, well done

My good and faithful one

Welcome to the place where you belong

Well done, well done

My beloved child

You have run the race and now you're home

Welcome to the place where you belong.

In my mind this came together: in our churches, we should be offering compassion and hospitality to such a radical degree that it is like heaven - Welcome to the place where you belong.

Lessons from the Airport

Steve and I were flying to Nevada to see our younger son.  I don’t fly all the time - but about once or twice a year.  I’m old enough for that to add up to a decent amount of flights so while I’m not seasoned by high frequency, I’m seasoned by time.

Preparing to fly - the trip to the airport, the check in at the ticket counter, the security lines, and the trip to the gate to catch the flight - are almost always tinged with a anxiety.  I’m not worried about the flying, but one is on a timetable, right?  There is always the possibility of missing one’s flight.

Part of the preflight (we’ll call it) is checking in at the ticket counter.  I love that I can actually check in on my phone.  I can even pay for my baggage ahead of time.  All that means that I feel as if I’m walking to the ticket counter with the job half done. I”m not starting from scratch, but I”m not finished.  I arrive at the ticket counter where a million (OK, I exaggerate, but it felt like that today) people are bustling around to a tune I don’t know. There are lines here and there and various stand of check in machines.  Everyone seems to know what they are doing except for me.  Which line? Which machine? Which grim faced counter employee?

Today, when we got to the Delta island of check in, there was an employee standing near the aisle.  He asked if we had checked in and paid for our baggage.  Yes. Then go to this line which is baggage drop off.  Magic.  He had interpreted the dance of check in for us and integrated us.

It made me think of church for the person who visits.  I am definitely a church insider, but when I go to a church where I haven’t been before, I’m aware of the outsider feeling.  I imagine this is 10 or 20 times worse for someone who rarely attends church. We need people like the Delta employee who helped us this morning.  “Here is how you do the dance.”

Who would this person be? The greeter at the door? The friendly pew-mate? The person who works so hard to put the words on the screen (including those parts we all know)? All of them or more.  We need to arrange our system for those who don’t know it, not for those who attend all the time.  

Hospitality

I remember, in 2012, I was involved in the local planning group for the NEJ Conference.  It was held in Charleston, WV.  It was a great experience that took a lot of work, but was fruitful for me, and, I hope, for others.

One of my understandings that changed during the planning and implementation of the Conference was the word Hospitality.  It is so much more than we think it is.  As I was reading Impact! by Kay Kotan and Blake Bradford, I found some pages that talk about hospitality.

1. We mistake hospitality for friendliness.  So often in my church (where I have been a member since 1981) members say that we are very friendly - and they have experienced that.  I believe them when they say it.  However, it took many years for me to feel like I "belonged" to the church where I belonged.  Hospitality involves making room for relationship, not just hellos.  How do we offer people the opportunity to really belong - to develop relationships?
2. We mistake fellowship for friendliness.  Fellowship is an important part of belong to a church family.  When my Sunday school talks about what they value about life in a church, they talk about fellowship, even if they don't call it that.  The problem is that Fellowship is inwardly focused.  It is about the relationships that exist within the congregation.  It is doing life together; it isn't about being welcoming to the stranger.  How do we make room in worship and in the life of the church to demonstrate hospitality to strangers/guests?

What is hospitality?  Bishop Robert Schnase defines it as "the active desire to invite, welcome, receive and care for those who are strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ.  It describes a genuine love for others who are not yet a part of the faith community."  It is outwardly focused.  (Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations)

How can we intentionally (and it has to be intention) demonstrate hospitality?

Perspectives: Who answers the invitation?

Earlier this year, Steve and I revitalized our bird feeders. They hang right outside our kitchen window, and we had a wonderful time watching all of the birds in the area come by and eat. Then we noticed that overnight, entire bird feeders would be emptied. The birds here are hungry, but not that big. 

Either we had a bigger animal eating our seed or Big Bird lived in the neighborhood.

One evening we caught the suspect, red nosed. Deer. This was not the creatures we had invited to dinner, and yet it is who showed up.

Are we willing in church to issue an invitation and to then offer radical hospitality to whoever says yes, and knocks on the door. Do we have Open Doors to everyone?

The Grace of Bread

Today (or a Sunday in the past, since you are not reading this today), I visited another church. Steve and I went there only because a friend was preaching, and we wanted to hear his message. We live in a different town than the church; there is no chance that living where we live, we would become members of this church. And there is the fact that we are already United Methodists who are members of a different church. I wasn't there in my Foundation role; I looked like a "regular" visitor.

As we sat there, a person brought us a visitor bag that had homemade banana bread in it. I tried to tell her that she didn't need to do that, but nothing stopped her, and we came home with bread. 

As I sat there in worship, feeling guilty, I realized that I was doing the church an injustice. My guilt was based on the idea that the bread was offered in exchange for something - that it was offered to persuade me that they were friendly and to try to convince me to return. That's not a very grace-filled motivation behind offering a gift, and why would I expect that their motivation was anything but grace-filled. The bread was a gift, offered in the love of Christ, to someone they did not know.

Glory to God.

Instead of feeling guilty, I should have felt thankful for their message of welcome and grace. And now I do. I think I'll write them a note to thank them and to encourage them in their ministry.

There is a lesson in this for all of us, I think. When we offer hospitality, we should remember that it is a radical act of grace, not done in the expectation of something in return. When we receive that kind of grace, we should be thankful for it, and not think it was done in "exchange" for something.

It's grace.

Open Wider

Do you think the post office realizes how uninviting this is? I know they are trying to direct traffic, but I was struck by how many "Do not come this way" signs are posted at this entrance.

Do you think we realize in church how many "Do not come this way" signs we have? They may not be actual paper signs, but they are still there.  

As part of my job, I visit churches across the Annual Conference. At one of them, there was a sign posted on a door - a door that was partway open.  The sign said, "Please keep this door open, just a little bit." I loved the sign. It was so polite and positive. Probably not coincidentally, there was a community dinner going on, and the Fellowship Hall was full of people.

How can we open our doors more? How can we make sure that the signs in our church - whether paper or not - are welcoming?

Clip in

I just started a new book called Clip In.  I'ts written by Jim Ozier and Fiona Haworth.  I heard Fiona speak at a conference and was intrigued enough to buy the book and start reading it. The subtitle is "Risking Hospitality in your Church."

Steve is a cyclist.  When he rides, he wears shoes that clip to his pedals.  This means that he can propel the bike on both the down-stroke and the up-stoke.  If your foot just sits on the pedal, only the down-stroke does any work; your foot just rides up as the other leg moves down.  If you are clipped to the pedal, then you pull up and push down - twice the force to increase the movement of the bike.  This is the image that the authors of the book use to teach about hospitality.

I really like this analogy.

1. There is risk involved in "clipping in." Your foot is connected to the pedal.  Ask my husband. If you lose your balance or stop without planning and are unable to unclip, you fall over.  It's a risk.  
2. You are connected to what you are doing.  You are invested.  
3. You can move forward more quickly because you can do more work.

We need all of those in the work of a church.  We need to be invested, to take risk, and to efficiently and effectively move apply work to move forward.  Steve loves riding his bike.  Ask him, and he'll tell you that the investment, risk and work are work it.  I think we will find that in the work of the church as well.

Tear Open the Roof!

Continuing from yesterday, what would motivate a group of friends to cut a whole in the ceiling of a room and lower their friend through it to reach Jesus? The crowd was too big to allow them access.

In our churches, do we ever get between God and the one who needs healing? What do we do to prevent someone from getting close enough to God? How do we keep people out of church?

So often, when we talk about this question, the answer that comes back is blank stares. "I have always found this church to be friendly and inviting."  As happy as I am to hear that, I know that there is probably someone who didn't enter the church, or who did, and who didn't find it to be a welcoming place. We don't ask that person the same question, because that person isn't in church.

So we have to consider the question ourselves instead. What keeps people out of your church? What about your church stands between the lost and lonely and God? What barriers do you (do we) need to tear down to move someone closer to God?

The De-Churched

In a sermon last Sunday, Alan asked, "How have we blocked Christ from those who might be called the "de-churched?"

First of all, I've never heard of the term de-churched, but as he said it, I knew who he was talking about.  This isn't the unchurched.  This is not those who have never made church a part of their lives. This is those who used to attend; who maybe came regularly, or semi-regularly, and now just are a part at all, or very peripherally.  These are the people who know and now miss.  What happened?

He asks, "How have we blocked Christ from these people?"

It's an important question.  Have we been less than inclusive?  Less than hospitable?  Have we been judgmental or hypocritical?  Has worship been less than engaging?  Have we failed to be supportive? Have we kept Christ to ourselves and not shared?  What other ways have we blocked Christ's love and light?

It might not be a question to ask ourselves or fellow members of our churches.  I'm not sure we know the answer.  The people to ask are those who are no longer with us - those that we miss.  How can we do that?

No

The word for today is no.

How many ways do we say no at church?  How many people are turned away, even though we think we create a welcoming place?

Isn't there more that we can do to bring church to people?  To welcome people into God's church? 

Isn't there more that we can do once someone breaks through and crosses the threshold to bring them into the actual church, instead of just the building?

Isn't there more that we can do to be inclusive?  Loving?  Hospitable?

Isn't there more that I can do?