I raised three children in the church. With few exceptions we were in the pews every Sunday morning, followed by Sunday school, and then the long lingering conversations afterwards. We were also at church on Wednesday for a mid-week program and dinner afterwards. My kids were churched!
I think it’s expected that if a child is raised in a church that child will always attend church. But as many of you know, that is not the case. Two of my three children do not attend church while one goes every week. For the two who don’t attend, it isn’t because they dislike church; they actually enjoy it when they do come. It’s just that they haven’t built connections to a church community that are strong enough to motivate them to get out of the house on Sunday mornings. And it takes a lot of motivation to do a thing every week.
But for my child who does attend church, it’s as if she caught the bug. She loves the community and is usually there twice a week or more. She volunteers in the nursery and goes to lunch afterwards. When I visited Atlanta and attended church with her, I found myself waiting a long time after the service was over while she chatted with her church friends (which was something she endured every Sunday as a child).
So why is it that one of my children is so drawn to church and the others aren’t? I think the answer is deceptively simple. *My daughter who attends church does so because she was invited by someone.* During a time in her life when she was in need of community, someone reached out and invited her to church and she went. She tells me she was really scared at first. She wasn’t sure if she would like it or if she would stay. Turns out the church she was invited to made it easy for her to integrate into the life of the community, and so she did stay. It also helped that there were people there that she had a lot in common with, she felt safe and accepted, *and they had lots of activities that she could just show up for*. That invitation ended up giving her life new meaning and direction. For her, it changed everything.
Do you feel like you can invite someone to church? When new people visit St. Andrew’s do you feel confident in engaging with them? Do we have activities that people can just show up for and participate in even if they don’t know anyone there? All of these things are necessary in order to turn an invitation into a connection. Making a pathway for new people to enter into the community doesn’t just happen; it is intentional, well thought out, and practiced.
St. Andrew’s is already a warm and welcoming community. We can get better at extending invitations to new people and helping them find connections among us. And for some those connections can change the direction of their life.
Blessings, Pastor Jen