A Gracious Welcome
On the Houston light rail, it was common to wait at the station and hear the automatic announcer say, “The Red Line will be delayed 15 minutes… due to… an incident.” 9 times out of 10 that meant that someone was having a bad day.
Such incidents are also common in urban church life like ours at First Church—with one even occurring just this last Sunday, involving a person who left worship midway through service after a conflict and entered one of our children’s classrooms in an unsafe manner. On our best days these incidents are handled with grace and hospitality, but last Sunday we missed the mark because we were caught off guard and unprepared.
Such incidents are also common in urban church life like ours at First Church—with one even occurring just this last Sunday, involving a person who left worship midway through service after a conflict and entered one of our children’s classrooms in an unsafe manner. On our best days these incidents are handled with grace and hospitality, but last Sunday we missed the mark because we were caught off guard and unprepared.
- We did not have a sign or updated policy that says pets are not allowed in the sanctuary. There is no designated area for those with service animals to sit. Such an area would let those with service animals know that we are prepared for them to worship with us, and let those with significant phobias or allergies know that they can sit in another area.
- We did not encounter our visitor outside of the Sanctuary, where we could have thoroughly explained such a policy and figured out how to help them worship with us.
- We did not have people stationed at each unlocked door to guide someone toward the right space, and to guide unauthorized adults away from children’s classrooms.
In short, we did not welcome our second time visitor and did not keep our children and volunteers safe.
There are many good and quick solutions to rectify these items in the immediate, which we will do beginning this Sunday. Locking the right doors at the right time, providing ample signage to guide folks to unlocked doors, positioning someone closer to the sanctuary door to be ready to help someone worship well.
There are also short and long-term solutions that need to be discerned. This event was one of many in this past year that support the necessity of a Gracious Welcome Task Force to operate over the next 5 months. This task force will define ‘gracious welcome’ for the First Church community and identify strategies to support every area of First Church to live into that gracious welcome.
A gracious welcome includes:
- Recognizing the dignity and belovedness of each person and acting accordingly.
- Helping all feel that First Church is a safe space to be in Christian community.
- Proactively addressing the safety and needs of each individual present on our campus, no matter their age, ability, or relationship to First Church.
- Balancing the posture of openness and inclusion with holding boundaries and keeping members of the church and community accountable for their actions.
- Giving particular attention to people experiencing houselessness or mental illness, and those who are young or otherwise vulnerable.
We recognize the concentration of houselessness increases in our area during the summer and the increased temperatures impact all of us in our mental and physical health. As we strive to embody this gracious welcome, one of the pro-active measures we can all take is familiarizing ourselves with de-escalation techniques. While there are many approaches to this, here is a video resource (click HERE to watch), as well as a PDF with 10 Tips (click HERE to read more).
More information on this Task Force is forthcoming. Representatives from particularly impacted groups will form the core of the task force, joined by other members of the congregation, and seeking wisdom and input from experts within and outside the congregation.
If you are interested in participating in this work, please email Pastor Karyn at karyn@fumcpdx.org.
More News & Updates
