We’ve an exhibition on in church over the next week. It is an exhibition of art by Syrian Refugee Children. Its fantastic and a way of seeing what is happening in that part of the world through different eyes.
There’s a preview tonight (Friday) at 6.30 pm. If you’d like to come to that preview, consider this your invitation.
See you there.
My husband and I became members of All Saints Parish, San Francisco not long after our first experience attending Sunday Mass in that charming little church in the notorious Haight-Ashbury district. At that time we’d been members for over 20 years of a parish in another diocese, but were beginning to stay in San Francisco on weekends. What inspired us to join All Saints as members was the receipt of a simple hand-written letter from the rector some two or three days later, saying it had been a pleasure to have us there and hoping we would come again. Neither of us had ever had such an experience in any church we’d attended. We were absolutely amazed (in a positive way!) and made up our minds then and there that we would, indeed, go back. Mind you, we were also welcomed by the official greeters, urged to come to coffee hour, and approached at coffee hour with friendly overtures from the regulars–which is not always the case in Episcopal churches, at least in California. I guess it was just the right balance between friendliness and respect for one’s privacy. In any event, we are still at All Saints, almost 20 years later, up to our ears in choir, committees, and activities. To me, it was the letter from the rector which did the trick. He (an introvert like myself) wasn’t too busy to acknowledge new people, and in a way which was totally unthreatening.
Thanks Meg – that’s a great story.
I go to a church which gets the coffee just right. But I don’t feel welcome.
I go to a church which gets the welcome team just right. But I don’t feel welcome.
I go to a church which denies that I was born gay and have chosen to love my same see partner whom I am not allowed to celebrate with. You see? I don’t feel welcome.
The homilies never include such exclusion. Never did they mention my being part of the Us of the parish though.
We have regular celebrations of love but not mine.
Many speak of going home to love one another and others exhort us to reach out and love the stranger. But I am in the midst of you and m only loves if I deny my own self.
There is indeed much still to do.
Welcome in our Church? Discuss.
I know Andrew. I know it all too well. And I know that the ease with which these loves can be spoken of here in St Mary’s in pulpit and pew is tragically remarkable in its rarity.
Bravo, Kelvin. I always feel that we in the Church are standing in the place of Christ – who welcomes all. Agape, Fr. Ron, ACANZP
Strangely enough about 1 hour before you posted this, I had been in a meeting in which one of the subjects discussed was getting more people to come to the church. The comments were full of “what can we do” I know that unless someone is willing to do outreach work nothing changes. I feel that as the church, St James the great, in Dingwall, will be having an open day when the refurbishment is complete, an ideal opportunity to raise the profile of the church.
I have taken on board the difficulties of being welcoming and at the same time not being separate, as you put it us and them. I have had experience of being both, part of a group and the new face
conscientize?
Here comes another book trying to persuade me that life in rural churches has a different set of challenges, presumptions and priorities to those which apply in an urban setting. To articulate that is also to articulate an uncertainty about who this book is aimed at. It might be written to encourage others engaged in…
Last night the LGBT group at St Mary’s had an open evening and a film show. When +Gene Robinson was here 18 months ago, he pressed several copies of a DVD into my hand before he leftt. It was the film For The Bible Tells Me So [DVD] [2007] which he had been giving away…
Here is what I said this morning: The readings that we have had this morning are the readings set for the day – the sixth Sunday after Epiphany. Most of the time, the readings that we use in St Mary’s are the same as the readings that many of our friends use in other local…
So it was down to Troon on Friday night for Tom Montgomery’s installation as Rector of St Ninian’s Church there. I have to say that St Ninian’s was looking absolutely beautiful for the evening. A gorgeous swag of flowers was behind the altar just over the heads of the clergy and there were beautiful candles…
Leave a Reply