What comes into your mind when you think about … supper? Anticipation of something delicious? Gratitude that someone else is planning and prepping? Thanksgiving for the people who will sit with you over the meal?
How about … doing something new, something you have not done before? Like eating sushi? Or flying across the country by yourself? Or walking into a group for the first time? Possibly, probably, a little nervous. Maybe expecting the worst? That would be me and the sushi!
But walking into a group or gathering for the first time, that can really be a moment, can’t it? Whether you are gregarious and delight in such opportunities, or are more reserved and so enter with some trepidation, it takes some courage to enter.
I remember a time many years ago, walking hesitantly into a gathering I’d never been to before and two women looked over as I entered, and they each smiled at me. Not just a smile, but a smile of recognition. Before either of them said a word to me, they each had made my entry welcoming.
Let’s just admit that it takes a bit of courage to welcome the newcomer, too.
We have just that opportunity every Sunday and every group gathering … welcoming the visitor, the new person, receiving with open and kind smiles, maybe a handshake, and an introduction of yourself and the person standing beside you.
One of our seven core values at PCC is to provide a setting that is warm, engaging, helpful and friendly. You (each of us) represent Jesus as the centerpiece of that welcoming environment. He has come that we might have life and have it abundantly. And He gives us the mission of sharing that Jesus-focused life with others. Because of how Jesus has welcomed us, so He commissions us, despite our own frailties, to welcome others. The Apostle Paul’s encouragement to the church at Philippi is for each of us individually and as Jesus’ church …
Philippians 2.1-11 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Stepping out of my comfort zone to welcome is counting another more significant than myself (verses 3-4 above). Let’s prayerfully invite, welcome, engage … that another might feel safe enough to let their heart hear the Lord’s call to them. He’s calling!
With love, Colleen