From Welcome to Acceptance

There is an important point in a host-guest relationship when the guest takes up residence. We do not have to welcome them anymore (we can swap the china cup and saucer for a mug) and, indeed, they probably are welcoming new people at this stage. They are no longer a stranger or visitor, but a familiar face and friend. In fact, they are not ‘they’ but ‘us’ – if we let them. The struggle is whether we allow them to be involved meaningfully in our church and community.

Do we see it as our church or as God’s church? Is the church our building or the people who are here today? Since the host holds the power, it is a choice. To say ‘yes’ will entail levels of uncertainty, change and ambiguity. To say ‘no’ is to dismiss Jesus. If the response is a ‘yes’, it is at this point that all kinds of things can open up and be revealed.

People will often begin to see that most of what happens in a church on a Sunday is cultural – the way people dress, the time we start, how we greet one another, the style of worship, how a collection is taken up, how long the service lasts, how or if people respond verbally to a sermon, what people do when it is finished.

Newcomers often ask the ‘stupid question’ – Why do you do that? Since culture is mostly our underlying values and ‘the way we do things around here’, most of our practices are habitual (traditional/customary), and we do them because that is what we do. It is only if these basic assumptions are questioned that we ourselves might engage with the question and wonder why we have to do ‘it’ that way.

Sometimes there are good reasons for doing it that way, sometimes there were good reasons, but they no longer apply, and sometimes there is no good reason at all and maybe we ought to stop doing that. More often than not nothing will be noticed, questioned, challenged or changed unless fresh eyes observe and raise the issue – How will we respond?

In one church, a decision was made to start taking up the offering collection in a new way. Instead of sending baskets back and forth down the pews, the congregation was asked to bring their offering up to the front. This change was made simply because a number of new people who had been coming to the church were accustomed to doing it that way. Both ways are equally valid activities for taking up a collection. The change was a way to honour and validate the ‘new crowd’ and to do something in a way that was customary to them.

Was changing the way the collection was taken an easy thing to do in the church? Why should we have to change when we have been doing it this way for years? What is wrong with using the baskets? How come they do not have to adapt to the way we do things? Why do I have to get up and walk to the front?

The main answer to these questions, I suppose, was that it does not matter how we take up the collection and we certainly can continue to do it the way we have here; however, if we change, it will affirm those who have become part of us and may make them feel more a part of the community. It may also help us to see that what is much more important than any of our habits, cultural values or particular identity is our shared Christian identity and values – we are, all of us, children of God called to love and serve.



- Contributed by Dr. Scott Boldt, Reconciliation Officer at the Edegehill Reconciliation Programme, Belfast