Good morning, Friends! I’m so glad to see you all again. Sunday morning is a high point of my week! I hope it is for you, too.
Last Sunday we talked about working on our welcome. We always need to be thinking about people who are here for the first time. And we always need to be thinking about whether they feel welcome.
It takes a lot of courage for most people to walk into an unfamiliar place. I’ve read that the average person, who isn’t brought here by their parents, needs to be asked 6 or 7 times before they actually walk in the door.
If we see a lot of empty seats here, one reason is that we’re not asking enough people, and another reason is that we’re not asking them enough times. Growing a church takes work, just like almost everything else.
Today’s Scripture reading is about one piece of that work, one piece of our welcome. Let me read to you from one of the epistles of the New Testament, from the first letter of Peter.
In your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.
Do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
1 Peter 3:15-16
This is actually one of the great, quiet pieces of advice in the Bible. It has more to do with how to grow a church than most of the Scriptures we read every year.
We can have a beautiful building. We do! We can have a lot of great history. We do! But what really makes a church, is people who love it, who love each other, who love Jesus, and who share that love with everyone they meet.
Today’s reading says, “In your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. . .”
That’s the beginning for us. That’s the foundation. We come here, because somewhere along the line, we heard about Jesus. We met Jesus, in some way. And we want to be close to Jesus, to feel Jesus in our hearts.
We call Jesus, Christ. The word “Christ” means Savior. Jesus is a teacher, he’s a friend, but Jesus saves people.
You’ve heard me say before that everybody gets saved differently. Some people are saved from mistakes they’ve made in life. Some people are saved from illness, or even death.
Some people are saved from a lifestyle that’s destroying them. Other people have been battered or abused, and Jesus tells them they weren’t created for that. There are lots of different ways to be saved.
And we call Jesus not just Savior, but Lord. That means number one. That means there’s nobody higher.
There are different rules and different standards we have to obey in life. But if Jesus is number one, then he’s the first word, and the last word for us. His word is our highest law. If Jesus says no to something, then we don’t do it, or we do our best to stop doing it. If Jesus says yes to something, then that’s what we try to do. And even if we fail, we pick ourselves up off the ground, and try again. Because Jesus is the Lord. He’s number one.
So, “In your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. . .”
But then it goes on and says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. . .”
That’s the heart of what I want to say this morning. Always be ready and prepared to talk with anyone and everyone, who asks you to tell them about the hope in your heart. You don’t have to be talking all the time. But be ready.
Some churches interpret this to mean you have to be pushy, with a memorized speech, with all kinds of complicated points about every idea that Christian churches have wrestled with and fought over for 2,000 years.
I’ve met people who are walking encyclopedias, with an answer for every question. It always sounds just a little fake to me. Because I’m a Christian. And I don’t have answers for everything. I think that the only one who has answers for everything, is God. And I’m not God. I’m pretty sure of that!
When today’s reading says, “Always be prepared to give an answer,” I think it means something more like, “always be ready to tell your story. Be ready to tell a little about how you got here.“
Be open. Be honest. Why are you here? Why do you try to be a Christian? What’s it been like for you? What was your first step along the road? How did you meet Jesus?
See, people want to know. And they want an honest answer. They don’t want a canned speech. They want to know if they’re going to fit in here, and they want to know if this could possibly be a home for them.
A beautiful building and grounds may be attractive. But that’s not enough to make it home. And history may be impressive. But it doesn’t always say what things are like today.
In many stories in the gospel, Jesus did things for people. He fed them. He taught them. He healed them.
Sometimes, Jesus told people, “Follow me!” and they left everything to go with him. But other times Jesus told them, “Go, and sin no more. . .” And other times Jesus said, “Go home, and tell people how much God has done for you. . .”
That’s what I’m talking about. Can you tell people how much God has done for you?
It’s OK if your story is different. Some people feel that their hearts were on fire when they met Jesus. Other people feel that it was like being on a mountaintop.
Other people talk about the peace they felt, the quiet, the calm, the sense of trust and safety. Some people stand up and shout. Other people say they finally found a resting place. Everybody’s got a different story, a different journey.
Why do you keep coming here? Last week I told you about a woman I knew, who was terrified the first time she came to church. But another woman saw her, and she moved over and patted the place she’d been sitting, and said, “Sit here next to me, and I’ll be your friend. . .” She came back the next week, and every week, for the rest of her life, because a stranger welcomed her.
Other people come because of a Christmas service, or an Easter service. Or because they enjoy the music.
Here at Springfield, many people come because they like the quiet time. Quiet prayer today is unusual, but we need it so much. In the quiet, people can empty themselves, and feel the Holy Spirit knocking at the door of their heart, asking to come in.
Other people say, “I like coming here, because the pastor doesn’t shout all the time. And it’s OK if I look out the window during the sermon, and notice a deer walking by,” which actually happened last Sunday.
“Or I can look out the window, and notice a butterfly hovering. I like coming to a church, where it’s quiet enough, that deer and butterflies feel safe to come, too!”
When you think about what you can tell someone else, you can say, “I get lonely when I wake up in the middle of the night, and can’t get back to sleep. But if I pause and pray, I can feel that God is near me.”
Or maybe you can say, “I always felt close to God, growing up. But now that I’m older, it’s hard a lot of the time. So many of my friends are gone. The house seems empty. But when I come to church, I’m surrounded by people who know me and care about me.”
“When I was sick in the hospital, someone from the church came and visited me. It didn’t feel so strange, and they listened to me and prayed for me. And here I am today!”
Everybody has a different story. Everybody has different reasons for being here. Sometimes it starts out, “I came to church when I was a kid because my parents made me. I didn’t have a choice. But now that I’m an adult, it’s my choice to come. Nobody’s making me. I’m here because it’s good, because I have an adult faith now!”
Or people say, “I come to church and I feel connected – connected to my friends, connected to my family, connected to God and Jesus, and connected to all the people around the world who come to church because it’s their home.”
Last Sunday I talked about a book I’ve been reading this month. It’s called 52 Churches by Peter DeHaan. He and his wife went to a different church, every Sunday, for a whole year, to see what they were like and to learn whatever they could.
Sometimes people said “Welcome!” to them, but the people in the church almost never actually talked with them. In only a handful of visits, in an entire year, did they feel a connection.
Almost no one ever asked to listen their story, or offered to tell their own story. People said, “Come back again next week!” but there wasn’t a reason to come back, because they almost never felt connected.
Can we feel connected to Jesus? Connected to the Holy Spirit? Connected to God, the maker of heaven and earth? Connected to this other person, the person sitting right beside me, the person shaking my hand?
You don’t have to tell people every last little thing about yourself. You easily can say too much. But it’s also important, to let people talk about themselves, to share a little bit, for them to feel safe to be here.
In today’s reading it says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. Do this with gentleness and respect. . .”
Gentleness and respect. That’s what we need to have. I looked up some other translations this week, and one of them said, “Tell people what you’re hoping for, and tell it with humility and reverence.”
“Hope” doesn’t just mean your wish list or your shopping list for a perfect church experience. It means, who do you put your hope in? Who are you trusting when you come here?
I don’t know a single church that’s perfect. I have never been to a church that couldn’t do better in some way. The music could be better, the preaching could be better, the food could be better. You name it!
But it’s like being in a marriage. A couple aren’t perfect. But over time, in different ways, they find that they’re perfect for each other. That’s why marriages last.
Almost every church says they wish they had more people. But when you turn that around, that means that we wish we could do a better job of welcoming people. We wish we could all feel closer to Jesus.
If we want to welcome people, we need to take more time, to share our hope, and listen to their truth. That takes time! And it has to be done with gentleness and respect, with humility and reverence.
Everyone’s got a different reason for coming here. Take time to listen to each other.