Containing minor revisions, this post was originally published at FromLaw2Grace
Who can worship at your church? Sounds like a silly question, doesn’t it? The church should be a place where anyone can come and feel at home. Churches should be open to all, for indeed we are all sinners in need of God’s grace! But, we all know churches where certain individuals or groups would not be welcome. Can anyone say Westboro “Baptist Church?”
What about your church? Is anyone and everyone truly welcome to attend your church’s public worship services, be it on Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night, or at some other time? Do you throw open the doors to any “guests” who might choose to stop by your church on any given Sunday? Or do you quickly show the door to those “kind of folks” that you hope never come back again? (And for the record, I’m not talking about “guests” who come to your church with the express purpose of disrupting the worship services.)
So that I am hopefully not misunderstood (although I am sure it will happen), I am not talking about your church’s specific membership requirements and who you would vote into official membership as a part of your local New Testament congregation. That’s a post for another day. I’m talking about someone simply attending your church’s public worship service, whether you hold that in a sanctuary, worship center, or at the local elementary school.
Before you attempt to answer these questions, think about the diverse multitude of people who could potentially walk through the doors of your church this Lord’s Day. While every community is different and, while not every type of person may visit your church this week, you will have guests who will choose to worship at your particular location.
For instance, what about the person who is of a different race or ethnicity than the majority (or all) of your church folk? The man who can barely speak English as a second language? The two women who tell you they’re new to the community and introduce themselves as a “couple?” What about the nice looking, college-age couple who drops by your contemporary Saturday night worship service and you discover that they are living together without benefit of marriage? Or the cultural Catholic who needs a personal relationship with Jesus and decides to give your church a try? Or the tattooed, ear-ring wearing, ex-con who just got out of prison and comes early to the Sunday morning “traditional” service and, unawares, takes the back row seat of one of your senior “saints?”
Every Sunday in America, churches welcome these types of diverse guests into their houses of worship. Sometimes we know the background of the guests. More often than not, we are blissfully unaware of the dirty laundry that they have stuffed into the bags they bring with them. Sometimes, we forget that we all too often re-pack our own bags with the filthy clothes of sin that we once wore.
However, when we discover what’s in a person’s bag, we can become less welcoming that we were at first. Periodically, I’ll have a church member ask me if I would “allow” a homosexual couple to attend worship. Without blinking an eye, I tell them, “Absolutely!” In fact, I’m sure that we have had gay individuals or couples who have worshiped with us in the past, are worshipping with us currently, or who may worship with us in the future. While I would not welcome them to become a member of our church, I do say, “Come and be our guest,” because I know that our guests (and members for that matter) will hear the life-transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ every week!
That goes for the out-of-wedlock pregnant teen who doesn’t think she has any hope. Or for the newly divorced father of two who is facing one crisis after another. And the young couple who have just moved into together to test the waters before they get married. Or the agnositc teenager who is searching for the “right” religion.
When you are our guest at church, that means that you can come, just as you are, and you will be welcomed and loved by those within the church. When you’re our guest, what that does not mean is that we affirm you just as you are. Our guests will hear that God loves them so much that He was willing to send His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world so that they might not stay as they are, but become a new creation in Him. We will share with our guests the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, that He came to save sinners (of whom I am chief) and to take away their filthy rags of sin and to clothe them in His righteous garments as they turn to Him in repentance and faith. We will share with them that it is by God’s amazing grace, through faith — not good works — that they can be saved. And, we’ll give them the opportunity to respond to God’s gracious invitation to join Him.
Sunday is coming. You should hope and expect that God will direct someone new to attend your worship service this week, perhaps for their first (and maybe last) visit to your church. And they’ll come with bags packed full of their dirty laundry of sin.
It reminds me of when I came home during breaks from college. I brought home suitcases full of dirty clothes, but my mom always welcomed me with open arms. When I left home for a new semester of college, my suitcase was full, but my clothes were clean. Will your church be a home that welcomes sinners who bring their bags packed with dirty clothes? And, will you help them receive new garments of righteousness that only Christ offers? Who can worship at your church?
A few years ago, a young man came into church to visit, wearing a ball cap. One of our more old-fashioned ushers confronted him and said that he had to remove the hat or leave the church. Of course, he left the church.
I proclaimed the gospel that day, but a young man didn’t hear it because he wore a hat and the usher felt like it would be better for him to NOT hear the gospel in a hat than to hear it.
I was furious.
I wrote about this exact thing today… http://ow.ly/2VyZO. I’ve been convicted lately about how to reach those who are hurting and lost and need to be in our services to hear the Gospel.
This is a good question, but I doubt anyone will log in and admit that there are people who wouldn’t be welcome in their worship service. The only issue that we have had to deal with was a hypercharismatic woman and her brother who were becoming disruptive during worship. Actually, the situation resolved itself but if it hadn’t we would have had to do something (probably short of banning them from the service).
Many years ago we had a situation similar to Dave’s. A black family came in, with the boys wearing caps. A older gentleman was quite upset about the caps (perhaps also about them being black, but he didn’t say that). Our community is so far north, and so far away from urbania that non-white people are still fairly rare.
We truly should have a “come as you are” approach to those who walk through our church doors. We should remember where we have been at some point . . . and where we might still be had we not been allowed in a place where the primary desire is to share the Gospel with those who have not heard it.
It always surprises me that some of the same churches that will send people out into the highways and byways will shy away when the wanderers come in from those byways.
We also should not draw attention to them to the point of making them want to flee.
I remember one time when my sister and I — way back in ’70s — went back to visit a church we used to attend. We had with us the new “Living Bibles.” This particular church had determined that only the King James Version was welcome. The pastor, when he took to the pulpit, announced that he had changed his sermon topic for that morning and would be talking instead about “the strange ducks” among us today. We were singled out for carrying Living Bibles.
In retrospect, that now seems hilarious, but it was very serious to us then.
We serve a God who changes hearts. We should be His accomplices. Truly, if the person does not end up conforming to the established ways of our particular church, he or she may move on to somewhere else that is more comfortable for them. We should do everything we can in the meantime to see that they take Christ with them.
Personally, I’m an NASB-onlyist.
Actually, it’s because I’m an accountant–Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), New American Standard Bible (NASB). 🙂
Groan
Another story. I had a friend who was pastoring a church in a city a few hours from here. He befriended the waitress at a restaurant he frequented – a woman with a “questionable” past. He led her to Christ and she started attending the church.
One of the leaders of the church came to my friend and said, “That is not the kind of person we want to reach to build this church on.” My friend left soon thereafter. If people who came to Christ were not welcome in that church, he had no desire to stay.
That church eventually folded.
Matthew 9
11 The Pharisees saw this and said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
13 Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
Well, Dave, you made me mad. Twice. Not you, really, but your stories. I’m a little short on sleep and long on coffee today, so I won’t say it’s righteous anger, but it’s definitely anger.
Don’t feel bad. They made me mad too.
I have seen too many “older gentleman who don’t like people different from them to go to THEIR church” suddenly die to not believe that God will take care of churches that contain a remnant of blood-bought believers.
When there is no remnant, the church dies.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
I’ve seen that too, but perhaps one of the most excluded groups there is in the church today is the older folks. so many churches have targeted young people. One local church (not Baptist) basically told the old folks they were going to be a youth-oriented church – like it or leave it. Many left.
But older folks feel very out of place in many trendier churches.
To clarify: My comment had nothing to do with age but everything to do with attitude.
I think the church that makes proclamations such as the one in your anecdote are just the other side of the coin of the no-hat-wearing-police church.
I wish we had more older saints in our church. We are a non-denom and as such we get people with faith stories all over the map. Older saints are essential to discipling this type of flock, and we’re a little short of long term saints.
Interestingly enough, our 80 year old deacon chairman and his dear wife are the rock stars at our very contemporary worship style church. Even in poor health they both pour out their lives in discipling individuals (and pastors!).
I wish we had 10 more of them.
I wasn’t confronting you or anything. I just thought of what I hear from older people when I read your comment.
Amen.
In conversation with anohter church in the area, the pastor said that while talking to the ushers, a question came up about coffee in the sanctuary. The pastor got a cup of coffee said some nice words about the people who drink it, and promptly dumped it on their brand new carpet.
I do have my thoughts on appropriate behavior in church. But in my mind, it is the Christians who need to set those examples, not through the law, but through their lives. If I expect an unchurched, nonbeliever to behave “properly” in a church, and I don’t model that behavior, what am I really saying about it?
It’s almost like we forgot what it was like to be children of wrath, having no hope and without God in the world.
My heart’s desire is that whatever church I attend treats every person as being created in the image of God. However, I also desire that unbelievers feel uncomfortable because they are being confronted with their sin. If someone leaves because they don’t want to repent, so be it.
But may it never be said that they left because they were shunned or ignored or fell through the cracks.
Dave,
I’m afraid we have far too many “churches” that just play at it, but do not welcome those who are a different “kind” to even come into a worship where they might find Jesus. I think that God will bring peoplel to churches that share His love and preach the Gospel to sinners, but God will probably direct folks away from churches that don’t do that.
Jeff,
Good word about folks not feeling shunned or ignored. I think that churches should be places where people can feel at home, but that doesn’t necessarily mean comfortable. We don’t have to be offensive when people visit, but the Gospel message and God’s truth about sin in our lives will offend, particularly when the Holy Spirit is convicting. God bless,
Howell
Jeff Meyer, I agree with every word you just said.
I had a related dialogue with JACK at comment 532 on another post here. I think it explores some of the feelings church members might have when someone ‘strange’ comes in,
and what might happen when they ‘react’ in Christ-mode to that visitor:
Jack had written this:
” “One guy came into a sanctuary with his hair dyed red and sat down front where he effectively broke up the service and he knew it. If the pastor had stopped and given him a bag to put over his head everybody would have been more at ease.”
And I responded with this:
Imagine: people welcome him after the service and invite him to come back . . . ‘then EVERYBODY would have been more at peace’
Then, if the man had come there to ‘disrupt’, he would have stirred people to action, but not the action of ‘this world’, but of another
When people come to a Church to ‘lift up their hearts to the Lord’, they will not come away from that experience completely unable to respond to those in this world who need Him, and who need them.”
Jack, when you talk about the guy with the Clarabelle-red hair winning a bet, yes I can see that happening. But does it matter? If the people treat him with kindness, as though he were Christ Himself, they have fulfilled the Royal Law. And regardless of his motives, he has been an instrument of God in spite of himself: instead of being humiliated and ejected, he would instead be an ‘outcast’ received and cared-for . . . so he would HAVE TO take that memory with him. And God uses all things to His own purposes. Who knows the ‘ending’ when Christian people have chosen to point to Christ? 🙂
We already know the ‘ending’ when they don’t. Why not try something different . . . the thing about Christianity is that Christians sometimes don’t think to try it! After all, it’s only been around for two thousand years. ‘Bout time we gave it a chance.”
Where was Christ’s ‘comfort zone’ on this Earth? A manger?
A cross? A tomb? If we want to be in ‘Christ-mode’, the idea of being ‘comfortable’ in His House, goes out the window really fast.
Then we can exchange ‘comfort’ for His Peace.
It’s a good deal. We come out better for it.
I think it is the battle for a “Glorified Social Club” against “Followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The first group met at the Temple in Jerusalem under Pharisee direction / the second group had their leader come to them with the invitation: “Follow me!”
I love the story of a man who asked a carpenter to come to his house to repair some rotted boards. The carpenter pulled out his tool box and began to work. When he finished the rot he started adding on with a new porch. He continued to enlarge the kitchen. Next he built an indoor bathroom for the little shack.
As the camera pulls back from the scene, the carpenter is starting to build a second story addition and you hear a voice: “When you invite this carpenter to your house, you get the real thing!”
Howell, one Sunday last summer, we had a bonafide cowboy show up. Although we have lots of cowboys in OK, this one was wearing his wonderful white hat (so I knew he was a good guy); all the men who greeted him just shook his hand and talked about how glad they were to see him. No one, that I know of, said one word about his hat. I’m glad he came to be part of our church even if I did have to twist and turn to see around his big hat during worship. selahV
A few years ago a large church in our city was having some major issues and a decent sized contingency left that church and came to ours. We have always been more diverse in races and socioeconomic status than your average SBC church, and I worried that these new mostly older folks who were on average a bit more well off. I couldn’t have been more wrong , we have not had a single issue that I know of.
Over the years our church has become more diverse, we are spending more on missions than ever and people are coming to Christ!
This response may go a little off point ,but I feel this is the blog to address this.
Who Can Worship at Your Church? Or who is welcome to stay and worship at your church is my comment. Who determines what is to be taught in the church? Who decides what doctrines are ok and which are not? After all, ALL churches teach the same Bible don’t they?
A person may join a church, sit and listen to preaching and teaching for months or years, then out of nowhere, doctrine issues arise. What is one to do? Of course discussion, but with no resolution, one must follow their convection. The Bible teaches trust the Lord not man (pastor). Psalm 118:8
The Bible also teaches in 2 John 1:10 “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:” I take this to mean do not let “him” bring a false doctrine into the church. The reverse is also true. If someone attends a church where a member believes false teaching or doctrines are being taught, then it is that member’s responsibility to remove themselves from that congregation, and not stay and stir the pot of contention. If one takes the latter path, the church (individuals) should not call the removed member a blackslider.
We live in a performance based society. Even in the Church there seems to be a mindset that if we are not seen by others to be actively working for God and if we are not visibly seen to be pious, then we must be backsliding. The problem with this mindset is that God is not as concerned with the outward manifestation of our zeal for him as he is with the intimacy of the relationship we have with Him in the depths of our souls, it is out of our relationship with him that he works in other lives.
The important issues with church (brick & mortar) that concern me the most are, (1) there is a lack of Biblical knowledge actually being taught from the Bible leading to an unlearned (dwarf theology) of the average member, and (2) the lack of adequate learning proliferates itself in the attitudes of the average member, which carries forward to the original question of this blog. Yes, the Bible in 2 John 1:10 removed me from my previous church, and into a home based church.
I think you may have shed some light on why SBC numbers are in significant decline—-and why the report of the GCRTF just put a little paint over a badly deteriorating wall / billboard.
I love this observation at the beginning:
what about the person who is of a different race or ethnicity than the majority (or all) of your church folk? The man who can barely speak English as a second language? The two women who tell you they’re new to the community and introduce themselves as a “couple?” What about the nice looking, college-age couple who drops by your contemporary Saturday night worship service and you discover that they are living together without benefit of marriage? Or the cultural Catholic who needs a personal relationship with Jesus and decides to give your church a try? Or the tattooed, ear-ring wearing, ex-con who just got out of prison and comes early to the Sunday morning “traditional” service and, unawares, takes the back row seat of one of your senior “saints?”
For the past several months we have had a man who has breast implants and lives as a woman attending our church. While some people have had some questions, he has been treated with love and respect.
Jake, sounds like your Church has shown kindness to this person. People with gender issues are extremely vulnerable to abuse from those who do not accept them.
So for your Church to have shown kindness and love was to provide sanctuary for this person from the abuses of the outside world.
The members curiosity was human.
The members’ kindness was ‘of Christ’.
What would be expected of this person were he to actually repent of sin, and become a child of God through the atonement of Christ?
That’s a good question, CB. In talking with him, he is coming to realize that what he has done has created more problems than what he had hoped it would fix. It seems that as God draws him closer, the more he sees his need to change.
Jake, Christians who work in the world deal with this stuff every day. Sometimes I think our buildings do us in…and folks tend to think of them as holy.
If you had believers gathering in your home for a time of edification and worship, would you invite s/he?
Of course we would. All of our meetings, whether in homes or at the church, are open to everyone.