Invite Welcome Connect: Mary Parmer's Sermon for Proper 16
Sermon -Christ the King, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida -August 28, 2022 Mary Parmer
12th Sunday after Pentecost – “Entertaining Angels Unawares”
The Epistle - Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it….”
Yesterday here at Christ the King I had the pleasure of facilitating an Invite Welcome Connect workshop with your vestry & lay leaders & what a gift to be invited here! I’m so grateful & it is an honor to bring the sermon to you this morning.
The ministry of Invite Welcome Connect includes three vital essentials:
Invite = Evangelism
Welcome = ministry of hospitality
Connect = ministry of belonging
In our Baptismal Covenant we are asked this question…
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Proclaiming by word and example the good news of God in Christ is as good a definition of evangelism there is, and Episcopalians answer this question with a resounding “I will, with God’s help!” So why is it many Episcopalians find it so difficult to say the ‘E-word’, much less talk about their faith or invite someone to church? The primary objective of Invite Welcome Connect is to help Episcopalians change this narrative….
INVITE is Evangelism – it’s about inviting people not only into a relationship with you and others in your congregation; it is inviting them into a relationship with God through Jesus. One of the most urgent and important things I emphasize in this work is that we must create a culture of evangelism in our churches, and it starts with modeling the very behavior we are asking of our parishioners. C.S. Lewis wrote “we must form people to be little Jesus Christs in the world”, and our leaders must lead the way, starting with our bishops and clergy, helping people move out of their comfort zones, willing to invite others to church…willing to share their faith story. Inviting someone to church through a personal invitation is the most effective and essential act of reaching out, and research tells us it continues to be the number one reason people come for a first-time visit to our churches.
Past statistics from the Pew Research Center confirm that 86% of people say they would come to church if asked, and I tell people the average Episcopalian invites someone to church once every 37 years!
As I take the work of Invite Welcome Connect around the country I share my story of how I came to be in the Episcopal Church. How I grew up in Natchez, MS, in a Southern Baptist home, went away to Miss State….got married....Fast forward 20 years….I’m in my early 40’s, divorced, single mom, still Southern Baptist…….and a woman with whom I sat on several boards called me one day out of the blue and invited me to go to church with her…to St. Mark’s Episcopal church…overwhelmed!!! Unbeknownst to her I was already seeing a therapist, who happened to be Episcopalian, and she had given me books….C.S.Lewis, Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out, Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth……. Year later Young Life leader invited me to St. Stephen’s, a smaller church….…I became a confirmed Episcopalian.
The deep truth of INVITE is Courage versus Fear. It takes courage to invite someone to church – it takes courage to share our faith stories with others… but the bottom line is that evangelism isn’t so much about offering something that’s ours to others so much as extending the invitation and getting out of the way, leaving the rest up to God and the Holy Spirit. If we believe in the truth of Jesus Christ…the Holy Spirit will EMPOWER us and give us the COURAGE to invite others to church….to share our faith journey….to discern our own individual giftedness.
MY FAVORITE SCRIPTURE…. 2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV) For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Welcome is the ministry of hospitality & the deep truth of Welcome is Seeing the Other.
Today’s Epistle speaks directly to this essential.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Welcoming the stranger is welcoming Jesus. Jesus asks us to see one another in a new way, in the way of love, compassion, and forgiveness, and He modeled this for us, and we are called to do the same. We are called to really SEE every single person with whom we have contact on a daily basis, and also with every single person who walks into the doors of our churches. Welcome is one of the signs that a community is alive…A community which refuses to welcome – whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors – is dying spiritually.
Yesterday I shared a deeply personal story of a time when my family was not welcomed in a church, a time when they desperately needed a faith community. So I can tell you that I know first-hand what it feels like to attend a church and not be welcomed nor seen.
I’ve taken this work into almost 70 dioceses, Canada, & the Episcopal Church in Europe in the last 10 years, and I’ve heard countless heartfelt, painful similar stories of people who’ve walked through the doors of Episcopal churches & who’ve left feeling as if they’ve been neither seen nor acknowledged. Truth be told, how many times have you entered a room of people in this church and you’ve spent time visiting with your friends & acquaintances instead of going over to the stranger in the room and introducing yourself?
I believe that when people come through the doors of our churches the Holy Spirit brings them to us. OUR WORK….YOUR WORK……is to create safe spaces of welcome for people to become vulnerable to the workings of God’s love. And, we are to do this for ourselves first, making sure we understand God’s call to us as both lay and ordained ministers.
CONNECT is the ministry of Belonging. This essential starts with offering a safe space where newcomers can share their stories of what brought them to church. Then through the holy gift of listening, we help them discern their giftedness and encourage them in their journey of faith. CONNECT is offering clear pathways to belonging where newcomers are guided in their journey of faith and into the life of the congregation, where new members are empowered and equipped to live into their baptismal covenant by offering their individual gifts and talents to God, and where we help them hear God’s call in their lives.
The deep truth of CONNECT is the Sacred Act of Listening. When we relate to those around us by HEARING THEIR STORIES and then connecting them with others, we build the loving communities of faith that God intends for us. When newcomers come into our church, the last thing we need to do is to tell them all the things we can do for them. INSTEAD...we need to LISTEN to them….to hear their story….and find out what brought them here.
CONNECT is all about relational ministry. We were created and we exist in the image of a relational God, and our spiritual and human connections are what give our life meaning. Neuroscience research confirms that we humans are hard-wired for connection, and that our nervous systems actually want us to connect with other human beings. So it should not be surprising to us that when people join our churches but do not find those relationships or connections so vital to their spiritual, mental, and emotional well-being, they go right out the back door in search of this deep longing!
The ministry of Invite Welcome Connect is focused on transformation, and that transformation begins first in the heart of an individual, as you say yes to Jesus and yes to a deeper life of following him. Invite Welcome Connect simply offers a framework to assist clergy and lay leaders in that transformation.
Could it be that today’s readings are calling us to look deeply into our own hearts…
Do we really live into our Baptismal Covenant?
Do we see the people we encounter on a daily basis as Jesus sees them...in the way of loving kindness, compassion, and mercy….
Could it be that God is calling you out of your comfort zone….to have the courage to invite someone to church….to share your faith story...the courage to discern your own giftedness and then to use those gifts in the Body of Christ…
May this be our prayer today
May we ask God for courage, for faith not fear
May we Risk seeing and welcoming the Other
May we become intentional holy listeners
May the world see Christ in each of us – for that is our calling!