Welcoming Guests into Their Own Home
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
-Robert Frost
Though church life winds down in some ways each summer, the dog days are a common time for a family to go church shopping, especially someone newly moved to your community. At the Spring Clergy Conference, our presenter, the Rev. George Martin, talked about changing our language about greeting to replace words like visitor and newcomer with “guest.” This was significant for George as he knows we are welcoming guests into God’s house. As such, we should put our best foot forward and be at our most welcoming, not to grow the church, but to be the Body of Christ.
As I consider this further, I can think of the many stories I have heard as priest of people returning to church, or even of going to a church for the first time. There is a strong gravitation pull away from the church for many and crossing your threshold is not as easy as it would seem. Add to that that if a visitor shows up with children in tow all dressed for church that this was no easy feat.
But in coming to your church, the guests may be strangers to you, but they are well known to our Lord, who makes his home in your church home. These are guests you are welcoming in their own home, even if they do not know it yet. The guests come with wounds and baggage and we do not have to know what all that is in order to welcome them as we would welcome Christ. But it can help to just be reminded that we don’t know what battles others are facing and we don’t know what deep solace they may find in a gracious welcome at our churches.
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This was brought home for me through a video on empathy created by the Cleveland Clinic. This short video offers a wonderful glimpse at what others might be facing. Imagine the context as a hallway in your church:
The Rev. Frank Logue
Canon to the Ordinary
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