welcome

Editor's Preface: This is the first of two essays on parish ministry and sexuality. The second essay will appear tomorrow. The two authors ultimately...

It's fairly obvious that people do not like going to the dentist or the doctor, and I suspect a large part of this reticence is due to the fear of shame and guilt, especially if there has been a longer period of time since the last visit.After my visit and reflecting on my own aversions to going to the dentist, I began to realize that this is how most people feel about going to church.

Perhaps our decline relates to our forgetfulness about what draws people to church in the first place.

Some signs were so old and rusted that service times were no longer readable. One was attached to a chain-link fence with razor wire crowning the top.

Buying a house appeals to basic human desires of independence, order, tranquility, family, status, and acceptance.

St. Paul wrote, “Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God.”

The contact points are different than they used to be, and the next steps are different as well — in fact, so different that my parish is having trouble figuring out what they are or how to help people find them.

One extraordinary factor may grow a church, but growing churches usually attend to several factors.

How do we welcome our children and not hinder them in their search for Christ? We begin by honoring them as people made in the image and likeness of God and taking seriously their ability to worship God in a manner that is just as full of awe, wonder, and power as any adult.

By Carla Arnell • The host’s special obligations to a stranger are memorably illustrated in a number of episodes in The Odyssey.