June Newsletter Article

Can you believe it? It's June already! The summer months have arrived and our church is moving into a time of Sabbatical. I am excited to see what God can do with our church during the next three months as we explore our mission statement in a variety of ways. I hope you will be willing and energized participants for this endeavor. We will need the cooperation and involvement of everyone to make this Sabbatical a successful event in the life of our community. So we begin with the first part of our mission statement, focusing on “welcoming.”

“Welcoming people into a loving and caring church family”

Welcoming is a great way to do church. But I'm not sure there are many churches that would describe themselves as cold and unwelcoming. Most churches I've known claim to be welcoming. So to call ourselves a “welcoming” church is note distinctive or unique. It's quite normal. What is distinctive or unique, however, is how we interpret, understand, and “do” welcoming. This month we'll uncover the many ways we understand and do welcoming here at CCC.

Our mission statement claims that we strive to “welcome people.” The word “welcome” is derived from an Old English word combining willa, meaning choice or desire, and cuma, meaning guest. One way to understand welcoming, literally, is as a demonstrated desire to include a guest. It is to show how we choose to include someone else. Thus, when we “welcome people,” we treat them like chosen or desired guests.

But guests of where and of what? We have chosen to welcome people into what we strive to be: a loving and caring church family. We are a community of faith, one that is marked by relationships (“family”) of a particular kind (love and care). So, to put it all together, when we are guided by a mission statement that is “welcoming people into a loving and caring church family,” we are hoping to purposefully integrate guests into our community of faith by offering and sustaining relationships of love and care.

Great! That sounds good, doesn't it? Several things come to mind, however, when thinking about what that means for us day in and day out. When does welcoming begin? When does welcoming end? What does welcoming look like? Do we measure up to our standard of welcoming? What if we do not?

Most churches will greet visitors and unfamiliar faces during a worship service. In some churches there are designated church members who do this, in other churches there is a general expectation that everyone greets visitors with no person acting as the official “greeter.” However, greeting is different than welcoming. Unfortunately we often collapse the difference. Just because we greet well does not mean we welcome well.

Greeting is a relatively easy thing to do. It's as simple as a “hello” and a smile. It can be drawn out to include cordial questioning like “where are you from?” But to use our mission statement as a guide to welcoming means something much greater than greeting. Welcoming is about bringing people into relationships (family) and demonstrating love and care. While this includes greeting (an action that can show care), it is more than greeting. To welcome is to open up a relationship, and relationships require the careful and loving work of time. Greeting occurs as a fleeting moment, but welcoming is a longer-term commitment. Greeting says “Hello,” welcoming says “we have a place for you, come and see.”

How, then, can we show people they have a place in our church community? What do we do to bring people in to the activity of serving others in love and care? How were you greeted, welcomed and brought into this church community? Have you experienced welcoming done well in other places? We would like to know your thoughts. This month we have a blog set up for the church where you can contribute your thoughts on “welcoming.” Please visit http://cccmission.wordpress.com and tell us what you think about this topic.

In the end, I'm afraid, we don't do welcoming perfectly. We fail to show people they are truly cared for and loved and we often get distracted from integrating others into the networks of relationships that exist in our church. We do try. And try we must. The good news is that ultimately we are sustained and lifted above our failure by that most gracious and welcoming God, the one who extends a relationship to us—we the visitors—through Jesus Christ. There we see the true love we strive to embody in our mission statement. Thanks be to God!