CHRIST IN WINTER:
Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter…
It’s getting close to
Christmas, which means more newcomers than usual in Sunday morning worship.
They need to make a showing now because they want to come to the Christmas eve
service and don’t want their friends to make fun of them as “Christmas and Easter”
Christians. Sort of an inoculation.
There was a time in the
church some years back when we were implored to have programs of “radical
hospitality” to take advantage of these “seekers.” That involved identifying
people who had come to church for the first time and waking them up from their
Sunday afternoon naps to present them with hot baked pies or bread. The
“program” people said this would endear us to them and they would want to come
back.
I wasn’t much into that.
It seemed too much like bribery. Also, I try to practice The Golden Rule, and
what I wanted others to do unto me on Sunday afternoon was leave me alone to
take my nap. Furthermore, I was busy and didn’t want to bother with that sort
of “radical hospitality.” I can give you more reasons if you really need them.
I was satisfied with
telephoning those people during the week and telling them we were happy they
had come and we would like for them to come back. [This was before the
possibility of texts and email and such.] Except that sometimes I got busy and
forgot.
Also I don’t like to talk
on the phone. I don’t know what to say if I can’t see a person’s face. But it
seemed I should call, because a card or letter was impersonal and probably
looked like it was churned out on some remote assembly line.
A new family in town came
to church. Met them at the door after worship. Nice people. I intended to call
them. Every day. Every week. Until it had been so long, and they had not been
back, that it was embarrassing. So, to get it off my conscience, and my
dog-eared to-do list, I finally called them, told the woman who answered who I
was.
“Oh, I’m so glad you
called,” she exclaimed. “We’ve decided we want to join your church.” “Really?
But you haven’t been back since that first time you came,” I said. “Yes, we’ve
been visiting the other churches in town, and they were all so intrusive. Came
by the house with pies and all sorts of stuff. You were the only ones who
respected us enough to leave us alone to make up our own minds.”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s why
we didn’t contact you.”
Actually, I did not say
that. I didn’t even think it. What I thought was, “I don’t deserve this. I’ve
been neglectful of my duties, and I’m being rewarded for it.”
Or maybe not. For those
folks, I did the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons.
I once pastored a church
of a thousand members. Shortly after I got there, it was discovered that we had
a really big financial hole. The board decided to lay off all the staff except
for me and a half-time secretary and a half-time custodian, whose time was
mostly taken up with a 65 child day care center that used our facilities. I
knew I had to be efficient. I wouldn’t have time even to telephone newcomers,
yet along go see them. So anybody who showed up for the first time, at the door
after the service, I said, “Would you like to join the church? We have a new
member class starting in my office during Sunday School hour next Sunday.”
Actually, we “started” a
class every week, including folks who might come several weeks because they
hadn’t made up their minds, or just because they had nothing else to do, or had
made a bet on how long I could keep this up. And every week, anybody in that
class who said they were ready to join, we received them into membership during
the following worship service. [1]
Sometimes I got replies
like, “Well, yes, but we live in Kansas and are just passing through.” “That’s
okay,” I would say. “We have an associate membership…”
We received over a hundred
new members that year, none of them from Kansas, the most, I think, in the
history of the congregation. All because we didn’t have anybody on staff or
anybody in the congregation willing to do a program of “radical hospitality.”
The most radical
hospitality possible is inclusion, no questions asked, no baked goods
necessary. Just come and be a part of us. We can work out any details later.
JRMcF
1] Church handywoman Joan
Gregg sat in on all those classes and took down names and information and later
sent off for transfer letters or whatever administrative stuff that needed to
be done.
Spoiler Alert: If you have
read this column in the last 3 months, all that follows is old news:
I tweet occasionally as
yooper1721.
I stopped writing this
column for a while, for several reasons. It wasn’t until I had quit, though,
that I knew this reason: I did not want to be responsible for wasting your
time. If I write for others, I have to think about whether it’s worthwhile for
you to read. If I write only for myself, it’s caveat emptor. If you choose to read something I have written, but
I have not advertised it, not asked you to read it, and it’s poorly constructed
navel-gazing drivel, well, it’s your own fault. Still, I apologize if you have
to ask yourself, “Why did I waste time reading this?”
Katie Kennedy is the
rising star in YA lit. [She is also our daughter.] She is published by
Bloomsbury, which also publishes lesser authors, like JK Rowling. Her latest
book is, What Goes Up. It’s published
in hardback, paperback, audio, and electronic, from B&N, Amazon, etc.
