Inviting, Inclusive, Radically Welcome!

Words describe realities and when it comes to the way churches live, we need to pay attention to the words that describe us. I've posted earlier about Stephanie Speller's intriguing book, Radical Welcome. I'm moving through it, along with a couple of other pieces, so it's taking time.

As I was reading I came to a chapter describing three ways of being church. In one sense all three are positive, but two of these fall short of what we're called to be.

Inviting: For Mainline Protestants, inviting someone to church is a big step. We're pretty excited when we get up the nerve, but while it's a start, Spellers suggests that more often than not we stop here. To be an inviting church is to be focused on assimilation. We want people to come, but we wish them to become like us. Thus, our inviting tends to focus on the ones most like us -- those who assimilate the most easily. Being transformed by the encounter with the other isn't on the menu.

Inclusive: Now, I'm for being inclusive. That's how we defined ourselves as a congregation -- we see ourselves as welcoming others -- even the stranger. But, according to Spellers, the key word here is incorporate. The inclusive church welcomes the marginalized into the midst of the community -- "but still on terms that allow the hosting institution's power structures and identity to remain unchanged" (p. 68). To be inclusive is take a step beyond merely inviting, but it too falls short. Mutual transformation hasn't yet happened.

Radically Welcoming: This is the next step in the journey, we begin by inviting others into our midst, we welcome them as they are, but now we take the next step and that is to be open to the transforming presence of God in the other. It is to be changed. Spellers applies the word incarnation here. "Radical welcome calls us to surrender and openness to the culture and perspective of the other" (p. 73).

Each step along the way requires us to risk something, but this takes it to the next level. It is to risk one's identity in the hope of being mutually transformed by that encounter with the other. As I look at myself and at our church, we're probably still at stage 1. So far to go, but a journey it would seem that's well worth taking.