The strongest impression I came away with is how much this church feels like family these days. I was talking with one of the other people who went and he said, "You didn't have to worry about a thing. You just walked in and ate and fit right in." Everyone was happy to see everyone else. It just felt right. I imagine this being similar to what the disciples must have felt following Jesus. They were different from each other. They all suffered through many trials. But I imagine when they were together with Jesus they felt that family, "belonging" feeling no matter what else was going on.
I hasten to add that I'm able to celebrate this impression without reservation because I'm confident that the welcome extends to all...that anybody could have walked into that light-filled, love-filled, and food-filled shed and felt the same. This is the challenge to church families. Many create their family feeling artificially, by limiting their inner circle to people who think the same and have similar church credentials. That's where family threatens to turn into a club and that "family feeling" becomes exclusionary and destructive. But as I looked around the room Saturday night and saw people of all backgrounds, ages, and church experiences together arm in arm I really felt that anybody (no, everybody) belonged there. That's a special, rare spirit and it's one that right now this church has naturally.
Take a moment to celebrate that spirit today and to reflect on how amazing it is that we can get together like that! Let's also resolve to keep it going and to extend it to people well beyond this generation of Genesee-Lutheran-Parish-goers. Defining our church by just this kind of spirit would be a good thing.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
