You invite your friends.
I never get used to that. Last week it was a couple from Detroit, visiting friends who'd brought them to Good Shepherd Sunday morning, on their way back home.
"That's a long drive for church!" I joked.
"Oh, it was wonderful," they replied. "People are so friendly here, and the service was so comfortable and so much fun. It felt like we'd come home!"
I've heard those words again and again, from so many different people. I've met visiting parents and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and boyfriends and girlfriends, from the Upper Peninsula to Florida, New Zealand to Germany. The day after their wedding reception, one couple brought parents from both sides and half of their wedding party! And I am always amazed -- when I was a kid and 3 friends stayed with our family for the weekend, it was an excuse not to go to church. For some of us, the sad truth is that church was not an event or a people we enjoyed but a thing we were forced to sit through. The delight you take in sharing us with your friends has taught me that Good Shepherd is something quite different -- a home away from home, a home for the heart.
So we've put the coffeepot out into the entry hall to make room for more chairs, and bought microphones so we can hear our worship leaders. We're no longer certain how much bread and wine to prepare for Holy Communion, how many extra name tags we'll need or cookies to bake. We're like a family at Sunday dinner who aren't sure how many plates to set, because the food's so good and the family's so much fun that someone always brings somebody new to the table.
That's what always happens when Christ is present -- you want your friends to meet him. I thank God for the way you invite your friends to our table: it's in their joy that I meet the risen Christ, it's in the banquet we share that I find the church for which some of us have hungered all of our lives.
Pastor Jim
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E-mail your comments and questions to Pastor Jim in care of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at gslc@sirus.com.