WELCOMING CHURCH
Our church vision statement proclaims that we are “A Community of Abundant Welcome to All, Growing Together in Christ, and Serving with Love.” That is who we aspire to be. I often describe my Franklin childhood as the only Protestant child in a Catholic family. When we went to St. Mary’s Church for family reasons, there was no doubt that I was an outsider. No sunlit sanctuary, no familiar hymns, just a lot of sitting, standing, and kneeling for reasons I did not know, accompanied by rote congregational responses I did not understand. I did not feel welcome and certainly did not comprehend why these practices gave my relatives so much comfort.
Some years later, my husband Brian and I looked for a church in which to raise our blended family. We started with my home church and looked no further because Brian found here something that he had missed in his Catholic upbringing.
I was home, comfortable in familiar surroundings and practices. My biggest fear was of introducing myself to a stranger who had actually known me as a small child. Brian, on the other hand, did not find the church so welcoming. Since he effectively “married into the church,” he missed the some of the usual assimilation process and was treated as “one of the family” from the moment he stepped into the church building. Sounds wonderful? Not really. He missed the powerful liturgy he had grown up with, and he had not yet learned the music that is so much a part of our worship. He liked the progressive theology, but had not learned our standard references. Even though the congregation treated him as one of their own, he still felt like an outsider. Sometimes he was even frustrated with me for not mirroring his enthusiasm for “Eureka!” insights that were just part of my childhood. I simply did not understand how hard it was to feel welcome in this different environment.
Fast forward to 2018 when I, a widow with children flown from the nest, left my renovated barn to return to my home town – or really, to my church home. It was my turn to be the outsider masquerading as an insider. I knew the old streets but not their present landmarks. My friends talked about people whom I had not seen since childhood. Things were sort of familiar, but not the same, and I sometimes felt like an outsider. I started to understand that “welcome” is not just letting you in the door and plying you with goodies after a wonderful sermon. I realized that eager sharing of beloved music and stories can actually make someone feel like an outsider if they do not have the background to appreciate them,
For this reason, I want to give newcomers an extravagant welcome of open arms, sincere affection, and an honored place at the table, but not overwhelm them with “insider” things we value so much but they are not ready to appreciate.
Lyn Pickhover, Trying to Get the Welcome Right