All are welcome!
We always say this, we tell people that everyone is welcome in church, we are fullyinclusive, no-one is excluded, but is that really true?
After all, it is ok to say that we welcome everyone but does it mean anything if we don't invite them to join us. After all, would you go to a new place, a new group, a new house if you weren't invited? I am pretty sure i wouldn't.
Can we truly be welcoming if we don't actually invite anyone to join us? If we just wait for people to come to us, to walk through our door, then surely we are just accepting. Not that being accepting is a bad thing but it isn't truly welcoming.
People are hesitant to go to new places and this is especially true of churches which are perceived as tight knit groups of similar people gathering and following some unwritten well known script. However, if invited by someone they know, or someone they have connected with, that is a different story. If they know before hand that the church is a more relaxed, welcoming and even fun place to spend some time then they are more likely to go. So it is down to each and every one of us to spread that message, to invite those we meet to come along and meet us. We should make them welcome even before they make it to our doors.
To my mind church should be a place that people feel they can walk into knowing that they will be welcome. In order to achievethat we need to talk to people outside of the church, share that feeling, that philosophy, that belief that all are truly welcome in God's house.
So, for all to be truly welcome we need to be truly inviting.
Have a truly blessed and joyful week.
Andrew
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