Museum or Hospital? or something else?

What is Church for anyway?  Who meets the standards to join my church?  Is it better if they dress, think, and speak just like me?  What if they smoke, and my church frowns on smoking?   What if somebody walks through the door who is homeless?

What if they bring kids who are noisy and run up and down the aisles? 

How genuine is my welcome to the smoker?  the homeless?  the kid who shatters the quiet of the sanctuary?

If Church is designed to elevate the race, how can we make the "race" feel more welcome?   

A fair question

Here's an email you might enjoy.


One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Alex standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a good-sized bronze plaque. It was etched with names, and small American flags adorned the sides.

The six-year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly, “Good morning Alex.”

“Good morning Pastor,” he replied. “Pastor, what is this?”

The pastor replied, “Well son, it's a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service.”

Soberly they stood quietly together, studying the large plaque.

Finally little Alex's voice, barely audible and trembling slightly , asked,

"Which service? the 8 o’clock? or the 10:30?"

How important is it that "they" like us?

One Sunday morning, a mother went in to wake her son and tell him it was time to get ready for church, to which he replied, “I'm not going.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“I'll give you two good reasons,” he said. “One, they don't like me, and two, I don't like them.”

His mother replied, “I'll give YOU two good reasons why you SHOULD go to church: one, you're 59 years old, and two, you're the pastor!”

________________________

Have you ever felt the world didn’t like you, and you didn’t much like the world either?

The mom in the story is right. We all have something worthwhile to give, whether we feel inspired at any particular moment or not.

The reason is not in ourselves, but because we have been created by a very intelligent and infinitely wise Mind to support and encourage one another. It’s second nature – or maybe first nature.

Selfishness, greed, self-centeredness, fear – whatever would tempt us to withhold our caring, would have us not help someone when it is within our power to do so – isn’t our nature at all.

We all have had moments when we have listened to an intuition, gone out of our way to follow through on that intuition, and realized afterwards what a right idea that had been. While this could apply to business, in this context it applies to our relations with others.

Those intuitions are angel thoughts that come to us because somebody needs what we have to give: our cheer, a friendly word or helping hand.

There are two good reasons we can leap out of bed in the morning. One, God loves us unconditionally. Two, as we accept that love as real, here and now, we discover we can pass it along without being depleted. We can pay it forward, regardless of whether or not "they" like us!