'All are welcome' is a lie
Why Christian community is about falling in love
Morning prayer Tuesdays 8am.
This was the sign in front of the Episcopal Church in Gettysburg, PA, years ago. So long ago that I was still in my brief first marriage, and my then-husband really wanted to visit the historic battlefields in the area.
I am not a battlefield fan, so I agreed to the trip as long as there was a good pool at the hotel by which I could read while he was gone all day. Then there was the extra bonus that here was a beautiful Episcopal Church within walking distance of where we were staying - and they had morning prayer on Tuesdays. My day was set.
So the next morning, I eagerly presented myself at the red door of the church at 7:50 (I like to get there in time to settle in and prepare myself for worship) … and the door was closed. Locked (of course I tried it). No signs of life.
I am not one to be deterred.
So I walked around to the alley that led to the back entrance - a more modern glass-walled parish hall entrance, and tried those doors. No luck. I peered in, hoping someone was around. Everything was quiet.
Just then, a car came down the alley - adorned with very familiar Episcopal Church stickers. A tall, older man got out.
’Good morning!’
’Hello! I’m here for morning prayer. Are you having it?’
’Well, now, first of all, it doesn’t start till 8:15, because we all like to listen to NPR news. Second, we have it over at the nursing home ever since Fred went in there.’‘But the sign out front says 8am, and I assumed that meant here at church.’
The man shrugged noncommittally.
‘I’m heading over there right now. Would you like to come with me?’
Yes, reader, I did get in the car of a strange man in a city I was just visiting while my husband had no idea where I was in an age before cell phones were ubiquitous…
And it was wonderful! I met Fred - and a handful of other faithful church members. We said morning prayer according to Rite I in the Book of Common Prayer (traditional language), which is my favorite. We sang some hymns. And we all got to know each other a little bit.
On the way home, Alan (my driver and new best friend) took me on a little tour of Gettysburg, and in the end I knew where I could find my people if I was ever there again.
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All are welcome.
It’s such a lovely sentiment. And yet … what does it mean?
I think we tend to use it as more of a description - whatever type of person you are, we will welcome you. Our doors are open.
Yet so often, they’re not.
Literally - our church doors are locked most of the time. Our worship and practice are local, specific, somewhat organic, and honed to the needs of the people who belong there.
Church communities tend to be very close knit. This is part of what makes them so wonderful. We’re ‘like family’. But ‘family’ is not a group of strangers - it’s a group of people who have customs and traditions and has built bonds over generations. It’s where people know each other deeply.
All are not welcome in a family.
Oh, eventually, you’ll probably be one of us, if you want to, if the bonds form. But it’s more like ‘many are called, few are chosen’.
That’s a good thing.
I was and wasn’t welcomed to that church in Gettysburg.
If I had just been a ‘visitor’, just a curious soul reading their sign, if I had no idea what the Episcopal Church was (or what morning prayer was), I would have walked away and gone on with my life.
I would not have persisted - not just because the door was locked, but because I would have had no idea what I was looking for.
Worshiping with a community is the end point of church life
- not the beginning!
Why in the world would I want to sit in the pews of a strange church (much less sit in a nursing home room!) unless I already understood how praying and praising God together changes my life? Unless I was already a member of this family of faith? Or I at least had the inkling I might be?
I was welcomed because i was already one of them! I knew the quirks and foibles (and amazing warmth and hospitality) of the average Episcopal Church, so I kept trying all my keys until I found the one that worked. and once I got in, I was treated like the family member I am.
(Incidentally, none of this was about my gender, my sexuality, my station in life, or which political group I identify with. I think we actually limit ourselves when we reduce faith community to a list of demographics.)
My welcome into church began when I was born.
I was welcomed into the life of faith when I was born into a family who went to church every Sunday, who made sure I was formed in the faith.
I was even more welcomed when I went to a college built around relationship with God - we had Eucharist in our dorm lounges on Sunday nights, I sang in the chapel choir, worked at the Campus Ministry office, participated in the retreat program. Our class motto was ‘learning, faith, and freedom’.
In my adult life, I was welcomed by seeing those around me whose lives were bound by Christian practice, who were Christian with their whole lives. which made me say - ‘I want my life to look like that’.
I’ve always been welcomed by those who shared their traditions with me, who invited me to their church, talked about their faith, prayed openly, practiced forgiveness, kept sabbath and silence, and generally showed me the ropes of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
The ‘welcome’ we receive as Christians is an invitation into the family - slowly, over time, with small gestures and the occasional misunderstanding.
It’s about falling in love - with God, and with the people who are in love with God.
It’s not (usually) about walking into a church service ‘cold’. And even if it is - plenty of people somehow stumble into a church when they are in need - it doesn’t end there. It’s accompanied by formation.
By walking with someone (or a group of someones) who are actively praying, practicing, worshiping together, as we grow in our relationship with God. By getting to know this community and its quirks and gifts. By becoming part of the family.
How do we welcome people today?
I don’t think it has anything to do with the signs we put outside or what times our services are. As I discovered - and continue to - they are often inaccurate. Or more to the point - more descriptive than prescriptive.
Worship isn’t a show and church isn’t a business establishment with certain hours. It’s a living community of faith, and our entrance into it is not truly at the door just before worship begins. It’s our baptism, it’s our conversion experience, it’s our gradual walk of faith, accompanied by other members of this family.
It’s also, honestly, a two-way street.
We’ve got to rattle the doors, go around the back and peer in. If no one answers at first. It’s not that no one’s there. It’s not that you aren’t welcome.
It’s just that their friend Fred went into the nursing home, and they still wanted him to participate - so they up and moved their worship to him. That's love.
And yes - maybe they forgot to put it on the sign. Or maybe they figured ‘if you know, you know’.
Because that’s how family works. It’s messy and complicated and full of moments that not everyone gets.
And maybe not all are welcome.
But if you seek, you will find.
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