Here in south Texas we deal with immigration first hand. And I wonder if in our church we need to adopt immigration style ideas to deal with the influx of people who are not from here and probably did not get saved here.
When my wife and I returned to Prescott after almost 20 years of trying to pastor we were surprised by the coldness and lack of welcoming we felt from some of the old time Prescott church folks. It was a different church that we came home to in 1994 than the one which we left in 1977. Life had been lived and we were not a part of that experience. We had friends and experiences that did not involve the Prescott folks. It took years for us to feel at home with people we had known for decades.
Moving here I feel some of the same resistance. I hear from some locals that Texans, and San Antonians in particular, feel like they are better than everyone else. And they think that their way is the right way. And I have had to be the grown up and adjust my thinking and my expectations to adapt to the way things are done in this church. I am sorry for my references to Prescott but that is where I am from and that is what I know.
What if we developed the attitude of welcoming new people like they were immigrants or refugees? What if we looked for ways to include them and to make them feel at home among us? We welcome new converts and we should continue to do that. New converts are the reason why we are here at all. But we also need to be mindful of transplants and transfers and others who come here and end up staying and becoming a part of this church.
It is and always has been our calling as Christians to accept and love people who are not like us and to accept the contribution of outsiders who want to help us be better than we are now. Maybe it is time for our church to rethink our own immigration policy.
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