I've grown up going to church and have never been scared to take my friends right up to the top balcony "That's where daddy is - lets go and see him", or at least those friends already in the building, but not everyone's dad is a local preacher.
When I first went off to university I went on a church hunt and it wasn't the amazing worship songs or the crush of people in the large churches I went to visit that I stayed with, nor the small churches where I could feel the stares on the back of my neck as there was a new person in the room. It was the one church where someone had bothered to do more than thrust a book in my hand as I came in through the door.
It takes an invitation, someone to show you what to do, where to sit and when to stand up so that you don't feel like an idiot that's doing it all wrong.
I know that the correct and proper answer is that we can't be doing it wrong but that doesn't stop me feeling like an idiot when I sit down and no-one else does because they know what's happening next and I've not been here before.
For young people who haven't grown up standing and sitting in the right places
The young person who has the courage to walk in through the door has made a bold first step. Now they need to feel the love of our Church Family (see last week) and to feel welcome, not with a new list of rules about who they can and can't be but someone who will talk to them about things that matter to them and make them feel welcome just as they are.
Welcome is not about adjusting new people to fit with us. Its about being flexible enough ourselves that we can work with what new people bring to us and mould ourselves to include them.
Loving God,
Make us a mould-able people prepared to change to embrace others,
Give us the courage to invite someone new in
May we have the strength to accept everyone who comes in through the door
And the wisdom to love them just as you made them.
Amen
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