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Company's Coming - Did We Invite Them? 
(page 2 of 3)

Today people need to be welcomed!  However, we live in a very
unwelcoming world. We can find the following signs everywhere.

Keep Out!
Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted!
No Children!
Private Road!
By Invitation Only!
Stay Off the Grass!

The feeling of exclusion is all too familiar.  But inside every person
there is a longing to be invited in, to be welcomed, to be received, and
accepted.  As followers of Jesus it is essential that we are a welcoming
community and that we make the church an inviting place.   I received an email this week from someone who received a cold reception at a church.

She wrote:  "We thought we again found another church home, but found out that since it was so small, there seemed to be a feeling that the people were not opening their arms out to us."

The church can easily come across to guests as cliquish!  We must not
let that happen!

Company's comin' - do we expect them?  A major motel chain advertises:  "We'll leave the light on for you."

It is their way of saying - "We're expecting you and want you to feel
welcome the moment you arrive."   Are we expecting guests?  What can we do to make sure that our guests feel welcome the moment that they arrive?  It is not just the assigned greeters for the day or the
pastor's responsibility to make folks feel welcome.  It is the task of
every one of us!  Company's comin' - how can we show that we expect them?

Company's comin' - are we prepared for them?  The master in Jesus'
parable was ready.  He was prepared.  He said to his servants in Matthew 22:4

'Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.'

Being prepared meaning having things ready and in order.  Everything
does not need to be spotless - just orderly and inviting.  It is our
responsibility to make sure that our church building and grounds are
inviting.  That will require that all of us take responsibility for the
looks of our church.  If you see something on the floor - pick it up.
If the toilet paper role needs replacing, replace it.  All of us need to
put things away when we are done with them - back where we got them in the first place.

Greet our guests.  Smile at them.  Talk to and with them.  Make them
feel welcome.  Paul instructed the church in Rome to...

"Greet one another with a holy kiss."  Romans 16:16

This includes friend and stranger alike.  We even need to make sure that our family feels welcome - at home and at church. I love the story of the elderly woman who was touring several guests through her newly redecorated house.  When she heard her husband return home, she excused herself with the word:  "Excuse me for a moment while I run downstairs to greet Andrew. I never like him to return home without welcoming him."  Through decades of marriage now stretched into the autumn of life, though thousands of homecomings, this woman had preserved her spirit of greeting and welcome.

Hospitality, of course, is more than dropping things to rush with a
greeting - but it is a start.  The quality of our front door reception
can greatly determine the atmosphere.  It tells someone right away that
they are welcome and we are glad that they are here!

Remember that people are more important than things.  Karen Mains in her book Open Heart, Open Home tells the following story.

The mud marks traced the path of little feet that had swaggered boldly
across the gold carpet, marched around the freshly washed kitchen tile, meandered down the hall, stopped at the bathroom sink - then ended in scattered clods of earth on the porch and down the front steps.  It all must have happened in the space of a quick dash to a neighbor.

"Joel!  Joel David!"  I called.  My mother mind had quickly assessed to which culprit the mud marks belonged: the great house despoiler, Joel David Mains.  Two small figures came bounding joyously from the back yard, their snowsuits plastered with mud - my son and his pal Georgie.

"What have you been doing?" I demanded                                  "Playing in the back yard," came the reply.
"No! No!  What have you been doing in my house?  There's mud from front to back!" I cried.

Innocently both boys checked their boots.  All four were huge clods of
clay properly cemented to moldering fall leaves.

"It was Georgie," maintained the every loyal Joel.
"It was Joel," countered Georgie, a little slower on the draw.

Obviously chagrined by a mother, who would make so much over such a minor incident, Joel volunteered more information. "Georgie just wanted a glass of water."

"Well," I replied, "the next time Georgie wants a glass of water, tell
him to get it in his own house."  And having the last word, I dismissed
them.

Within minutes aided by a wet rag and vacuum, I erased the telltale
evidence.  Glancing at the clock I discovered that two lovely hours
remained before the older children arrived home from school.  Grabbing my Bible, I sat down and whispered, "Here I am again, Lord.  It's Karen.  What have you to teach me today?"

Opening the Scriptures I continued my study of the Gospels.  There God shouted out at me from Matthew 10:42

"If, as my representative, you give even a cup of cold water to a little
child, you will surely be rewarded."

Shame flooded me.  Georgie just wanted a glass of water.  I bowed my heart and prayed, "Father forgive me for caring more for clean floors and tidy schedules than for two little boys."

That's an important lesson we all have to learn.  People are more
important than things.  Now, that doesn't mean we don't want to keep
things nice and people should show respect for our building and we all
need to pitch in and make sure it looks nice - HOWEVER, we must not let the building become our god!  We must not care more about the building than we do about people.

A colleague of mine recently wrote in their church newsletter: "Our
carpet is wearing out - isn't that great? That means that many people
are coming to our church."  Wouldn't it be great if our baptismal font
wore out from so many baptisms?  Wouldn't it be great if the communion rail wore out from so many people kneeing there to pray and meet God?

Let us make sure that we always value people over things.

A businessman asked Mother Theresa to give him some advice about how to live the Christian life in an authentic way.  She took the man's hand in her own and spread out his fingers. Then she repeated five words, one for each finger on his hand:

"You did this unto me."

At the end of the day he was to look back at what he had done.  Was
there anything that day about which Jesus would be pleased to say, "You did this unto me?"  Jesus said:

"I was a stranger and you welcomed me...(Matthew 25:35)    

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