Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

PASTOR'S PENS 2008

Grace Church of Burlington March 9, 2008  “Hospitality should have no other nature than love.”            Henrietta Mears             Some of you know that I am the youngest of five children. There are fifteen years between my oldest brother, Mike, and me. There are ten years between my brother, Mark, and myself. So when I was a child, they were in their late teens or early twenties. Periodically, they would bring a young lady home to meet the family. To say that we “tortured” them is an understatement. Every silly thing that they had ever done, every stupid blunder, every odd family memory was pulled out of the closet and shared with their guest.             Now it wasn’t intended to be malicious, it was meant to be humorous. But it left both of my brothers and their guest, feeling a bit uncomfortable. Looking back, it’s a wonder that either of them ever got married. And knowing what I know now, it’s obvious why they rarely brought a young lady home to meet the family.             Last week our family had some very special guests. Sara and Sofia are traveling with Up With People and stayed with us for a few days. I cannot thank you enough for how kind, gracious and friendly you were to them. It was very apparent that several of you went out of your way to make them feel especially welcome and comfortable.             Sara is from Sweden and Sofia is from the Netherlands. Their exposure to church has been the mainline and very formal churches of their homelands. They shared later that our church was very, very different from what they are accustomed to. Sara asked Charity before the service if she should even speak to people because at her church in Sweden, people do not talk to one another. The churches are cold, formal, boring and irrelevant. They were impressed by how comfortable our church is and also how friendly. They were both surprised and appreciated that our church had guitars, drums and even video. Our church rather than being so distant from their world and life experience was much closer to their world. They did not feel as if they were visiting Mars or the dark side of the moon.             If you were in second service, you may have realized that I went out of my way to nearly over-explain spiritual and salvatory concepts that most of us take for granted. And I so appreciated your graciousness and attentiveness, though for some of you it was fairly familiar ground. There was no clock watching or sighs of  boredom.  I  cannot  begin  to  tell  you  how  much  I  appreciate just how gracious  you were.             Our European friends are from post-Christian cultures. They believe that Humanism is the solution to our world’s problems. They were shocked and even appalled that I did not believe that man is basically good or that by education and dialogue, we could solve most of our world’s problems.             But their world is quickly becoming ours. America is rapidly becoming a post-Christian culture. Many of the folk who enter our doors and visit our services have no idea where we are coming from. And though they disagree with our Christian worldview, our Christian behavior is supremely attractive to them. To be around folk who genuinely care for and love one another gets their attention. They are shocked that we are so open and welcoming of outsiders!             While we need to continually work at sharpening our minds and hearts so that we can dialogue and witness to a post-Christian world, the most powerful message that we have to share is the love of God...love flowing through us for one another and the lost around us.             Thank you so much for being faithful and demonstrating that love this past Sunday!!