Sabbatical #19: Be Our Guest?

I miss my family. Suzanne, Eliana, and Vivian will be here tomorrow evening, and I can’t wait. But I also miss my church family. Being immersed in church life, it’s been almost 10 years since we’ve looked for a new church. I’ve visited a couple mega-churches where anonymity is expected, but over the last couple weeks I’ve tried to visit smaller churches. I couldn’t find the church I was looking for in Milwaukee, but it was my discomfort with Plan B that I wanted to post about.

I was in the neighborhood, I presume, of the church I was looking for but couldn’t find (I’m becoming increasingly disenchanted with Mapquest) and I saw a Lutheran church. I’ve never been to a Lutheran church. I thought about going, but I worried that I wasn’t dressed nicely enough. I wasn’t sure where to park. So I didn’t. I went and read my Bible at a coffee shop.

Now the Lutherans are our brothers and sisters, as far as I understand Lutheranism. And still I was not comfortable going there. It put me in the position of the guests who come to Cypress Church. It can be awkward, intimidating to go to church, particularly when you aren’t a believer.

But what if you actually get in the door and make it to church? I did that yesterday (Father’s Day) and I was greeted at the door and someone shook my hand when I left. The senior pastor did, too. It was nice, but nobody else talked to me. I felt alone (reason #587 that I can’t wait for my family to get here!), which didn’t trouble me to a great degree. But what about the person who was dying for someone to reach out to them, to show them the love of Christ?

To be fair, this is one of the bigger churches in my hometown and I was really impressed with the church in many other ways. I’d probably go back and I’d have to make the effort to get plugged in to their community.

I’m thankful for the great ministries that welcome people, like the Greeters and the Connection Center, but there’s no substitute for the person sitting in the row behind you tapping you on the shoulder, welcoming you to the church, and maybe even inviting you to lunch.