[This reflection by Martin Shorey was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 05/Feb/2023]
Unfortunately, despite my best efforts I doubt it’s for the sermon! We all come for many different reasons. Perhaps it’s because our friends go, or we feel a duty to attend, or we love the worship. Maybe it’s because we want our children to get a Christian foundation in their lives, or it gives us an opportunity to escape life for a bit and rest in God’s presence. Some come because they’re just curious. A little while a go a lady turned up to a Sunday service with her daughter because her daughter had been learning about Christianity at school and she wanted to see what church was like.
Regardless of the reason, we want people to feel welcome, accepted, and included in what is going on. However, in order to do this well, we need to be able to understand how a Sunday service might be for someone new, who maybe has little or no experience of ‘church’. What happens when someone comes for the first time and can’t find somewhere to park? What happens when they turn up and people ignore them? What happens when they don’t know the songs, or the protocol for church that everyone else seems to know but haven’t told them about? What happens when their children are frowned at, or when parents are expected to leave their children in a back room with a bunch of strangers?
Now, HBC does an amazing job of welcoming people, but we should never become complacent – there is always room to improve, and always work to be done in educating the entire church in how to better welcome the newcomer. But I also want to ask the question, who are we introducing people who come on a Sunday to? Too often people come to church, and even become Christians because they have discovered a community that loves and welcomes them – that they can be a part of. Now that’s great, but primarily the person we should be introducing them to is Jesus. We need to ensure that we preach about the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We need to challenge people to change and not stay the same. We need to welcome the Holy Spirit into every meeting, allowing space for God to do what we can’t – change people’s hearts.
Ultimately we want to create a warm, caring, engaging and vibrant environment in an appealing, safe, and accessible setting, which introduces people to our life-transforming Saviour, Jesus. How can you be a part of making that an ongoing reality at HBC?
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Contributed by Martin Shorey; © the Author
