What it takes to be a welcoming church

Actually, it’s what you would expect anywhere.

Though maybe there are some differences.

It’s those differences that really matter.

Let me explain …

Since the beginning of January we have started to take a look at what’s going on in our church so that we can build on what’s good, identify what needs to be developed and grow to the glory of God.

At our January Church meeting we asked people to come up with words and phrases that describe what’s special about Highbury.  At our February meeting the Deacons then stood round a set of tables in the Moreton Brown Room and had six sheets of different coloured paper and had the task of putting the slips of paper with those words on on to different sheets.

What was fascinating was the way they clustered together under six very clear headings.  One or two deacons took responsibility for each of those headings and prepared a display or a conversation for our annual meeting on Thursday.  At that meeting it was great not only to hear about the work of the church but see and talk about all that is going on.

Each month, my piece in Highbury News will focus on each group in turn, we will focus our Sunday morning services the same way.  In other settings we will home in on that aspect of the church’s life.  We will try to dig a little more deeply into what makes us tick as a church in that way.

Then over the very last weekend in September we are going to have a church weekend away at home.  We will have all the fun of our weekends away, but closer to home.  And we will think together about what we need to add in to the life of the church so that together we can develop and grow to the glory of God.

And so this month, we start with all those words people came up with to describe what’s special about Highbury that have to do with welcoming.

Accepting, welcoming, warmth, friendly, homely, sociable.

And that brings me back to where I began.

Actually, it’s what you would expect anywhere.

Take the theatre – I caught Simon Callow doing an evening on Dickens at the Bacon Theatre  and Yes Prime Minister at the Everyman.  On both occasions the people who ‘welcomed’ us to the theatre were very welcoming.  There was a warmth of welcome on the part of everyone who greeted us, took our ticket stubbs and directed us to our seats.

Take a café or restaurant.  Tuesday of last week saw a lunch party at Richard’s invitation eating out at one of those bargain eateries Richard has such a knack of finding.– great company, but also, by all accounts a warmth of welcome by those working in that place – as you arrive and as you are waited on at table.

That lunch time Carolyn, Felicity and I had a working lunch with Joy Howells the Area Children’s and Youth worker who had joined us for the day to find out about children’s and youth work here at Highbury.  The folk at the small café on the Strand had joined their daughter as she sang a solo at the Pittville carol service here at Highbury and I made the connecton with them and they were so welcoming.

And that evening Hy-Speed had its Annual General Meeting at the Swan where, once again, the staff were as welcoming as could be.

It’s what you would expect anywhere.

Not that we can take it for granted.  It takes working at.  And I guess we have all had the experience of being put off by the lack of welcome at any number of different places.

We work at it. If you would like to join the welcoming rota then please have a word with Sue, or talk to Lorraine or Sharon.  To welcome people with a smile – and a sensitivity to the different needs people may have – it’s fascinating to look at the guidelines for welcoming that we have explored with disability issues in mind.

And it’s not something you get at every church – as we discovered to our shock at one church that shall remain nameless on holiday last year.

It’s what you would expect anywhere.

Though maybe there are some differences.

And it’s those differences that really matter.

The upholstered bench seats at the Bacon Theatre can be very intimate.  As I sat I was quite relieved to see a gap between me and the next person.  I nodded politely, but then chatted with as it happened it was Richard next to me.  Before and during the interval I found myself standing in a very busy foyer where it seemed as if everyone was talking to everyone else.  I spoke to no one.  And I wouldn’t expect to unless I recognised someone.

The same happened at the Everyman.  There may be arms to the seats in the gallery but you are squashed up against the person next to.  Again, the most cursory of nods.  And the conversation the whole evening was exclusively between Felicity and me.  And that’s what I would expect.  It is the convention in a public place.

There was a lovely warmth of fellowship among the Richard’s group, among the group I was with, among the Hy-Speed group at those eating houses …. But we didn’t engage with people on the tables around us, unless a cursory polite greeting.

That’s what’s different about church.

The warmth of welcome doesn’t stop with the people at the door.  That spirit of ‘welcoming’ is something that happens as much this side of the screen that separates us in here in church from the porch.

It’s good to have a spirit of welcome of one another.  That greets and is open to chat with others.  A sensitivity – it’s possible to be too over the top, to sense when people want to slip in, when they want not to be talking and chatting with everyone.  A sensitivity that is very important to be alert to, but nonetheless does not diminish that spirit of welcome.

For that spirit of open welcome goes to the heart of what we are about.  But it carries with it a challenge.

God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son … and Jesus had a love that reached out to all – from the Samaritan to the woman caught in adultery, from Matthew the tax collector to Zacchaeus the cheat.  One of the very last parables Jesus shared goes right to the heart of the matter:

“I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

“When was it that we saw you a stranger and we welcomed you?” 

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters you did it to me.”

It’s so obvious, we can so easily take it for granted.

At the time it wasn’t obvious at all.

James, the brother of Jesus, could well remember that time he and his brothers came to Jesus together with Mary, Jesus’s mother.  They just wanted a bit of family time together.  It was hard to take.  Jesus was with complete strangers … and they couldn’t get near him.  Word got through to Jesus, Your mother and your brothers are standing outside.  But he said to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”

James never forgot that.

Jesus had time for strangers.  To welcome a stranger was to welcome Jesus.

He had been with the disciples in that upper room and seen the risen Jesus, sensed the power of God’s Holy Spirit and those words stuck with him.

“Be doers of the word.”  He wrote in a round robin letter to all Christians everywhere.  A letter that echoes down through the centuries to us as well.

And he was sure the welcome extends to all.  How wrong to show favouritism.

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favouritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please’, while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there’, or, ‘Sit at my feet’, have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonoured the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

No favouritism – we would do well to fulfil the royal law according to the Scripture – the law of the kingdom – You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

A welcome at the door.

A welcome in the church family.

A welcome in the heart.

It goes without saying – are there limits to our welcome.

There is a twist in the tale.

Don’t imagine that the stranger who becomes a friend will simply want to be on the receiving end of our hospitality.  It may just be that that person will have a message for us to heed, a challenge for us to give, a word that will change the course of our lives too.

Are we open to hear the word of Christ for us?

Whoever welcomes one who comes with a word from Christ welcomes Christ himself.  Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you none of these will lose their reward.

It’s the writer to the Hebrews who puts it in a nutshell … in 13:12

Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”