Welcoming Guests

The Young Professionals Sunday School Room at Calvary Baptist Church, Waco, Texas 

Being a church visitor is not a state I particularly enjoy, but it has some benefits. Chief among these is remembering how important it is to make people feel welcome.  Once I find a church in Alabama I intend to stay put--for decades, if possible--and then it will be my turn to watch for new faces and practice hospitality in whatever ways I can. This list is compiled from the ways I have been welcomed not only during my last four weeks of church visitation, but from my experience seeking a church in grad school and college. They are listed in no particular order.

1. Pay attention to names. Repeat the guest's name until you almost feel silly, and then make sure to call her by name if you see her after worship or next week.
2. Invite the guest to lunch. After-worship lunches are good, but setting a lunch date for later in the week can be even better, for this shows that your interest and memory extend beyond Sunday morning.
3. Send a deacon to the guest's house on Sunday afternoon with a warm loaf of French bread. (I'm still a little surprised I didn't join this church on the spot).
4. Make contact after Sunday. Look the guest up on Facebook, send a personal email, and, if you really want to shine, send a handwritten note of welcome. This sort of contact is often standard practice for pastors, but hearing from lay members of a Sunday School class or Bible study can be even more meaningful because it is not their "job" to welcome guests.
5. Ask the guest what she is hoping to find in a church, and suggest other churches in the area she might want to visit.
6. Invite the guest to some sort of small-group activity through the church--this could be as formal as a Bible study, or as casual as a gathering of church friends. If she declines, be persistent. It takes some people (like me) about three invitations to work up the courage to face a group of new people in an informal setting.
7. Share what you love about your church. Don't be shy about explaining why you show up each Sunday morning.
8. If you are a 90-something-year old man, shake the guest's hand each time the congregation stands to sing. At the end of the worship service, say, "I'm so sorry I keep forgetting your name, but I love you in Christ." Then give her a hug.


If you are an established member of a church, how do you welcome visitors? If you are a visitor, what makes you feel welcomed in a church?

A letter to someone who took me seriously

Dear Tiffany,
    I have never forgotten the words you gave me, but until today I had forgotten your name. It would be lost, except that I kept a startlingly detailed diary when I was in middle school. Most of what I recorded now seems painfully trivial, but your name was worth saving.

I never knew you well. You were a college student from another campus, and we met because my parents were taking their students to same tri-state conference your group was attending. I was thirteen, shy and self-conscious. You had quirky clothes and a ready laugh.

The conference was the sort I had attended all my life: a weekend-long retreat and revival for college students, featuring topical break-out sessions and daily worship services. I spent my childhood reading and playing through these conferences. The sessions didn't really interest me, and I was also terrified of people (and most other things). By the time we met, I was quite adept at entertaining myself and staying out of the way, and I spent most of that weekend doing homework in my parents' hotel room.

The only session I attended was the closing worship service on Sunday morning. I'm sure I paid at least moderate attention to the sermon, and I probably sang along with whatever praise choruses were popular in 1997. All I really remember from that morning, however, is you. The preacher had asked for all of the campus ministers to stand and receive prayers for their ministries. My parents stood, but I remained seated, edging away to make room for the students who were gathering and laying hands upon my mother and father. I intended to pray, too, but you interrupted me, walking right past my parents and sitting down next to me. "May I pray for you?" you asked. Bewildered, but too shy to refuse, I nodded.

This is what I recorded in my messy, eighth-grade cursive:

As [Tiffany] was praying, I nearly cried, I had never heard anyone pray so specifically for me. She said that my being here at ISU is no accident, and she prayed that God would give me strength to question tradition and seek the Lord. She prayed like she truly cared." 

You thanked God for making me my parents' daughter, and for giving me a role in their ministry to college students. You challenged me not to surrender to conventional roles for girls in life or in ministry. You asked God to fill me with love and to show me what work I was meant to do among college students. You showed that me that I did not need to wait--for college, for adulthood, for a more outgoing personality--before doing something with eternal value.

Looking back, it would be easy for me to say that your prayer helped prepare me for my career as a college professor. Like my parents, I have chosen to work in higher education because I want to help build God's kingdom on university campuses. And yet, when you prayed for me fifteen years ago, you didn't mention the future. You interceded in the present tense, and that was what really shocked me. I had never considered that there was already some good work (other than homework) that I could do, much less work among the college men and women I adored.

You hardly knew me, Tiffany, but you took me far more seriously than I took myself, and you radiated with a love for God's kingdom that I could hardly fathom.
 
The change was slow but real. In the years that followed I remained shy, but I grew discontent with my self-imposed forms of isolation. By the time I reached high school, your prayer had ruined me for youth groups. For the rest of my teen years, I had no patience for camp games or dating advice or "girls just want to have fun"-themed Bible studies; I craved mentorship and holy adventures and substance. Instead of playing the perpetual kid sister, I began to ask what it meant to befriend college students. Instead of assuming that all college kids were half rock-star, half-superhero, I started to watch the ways they grew or floundered into adulthood. I listened to the things that excited them, troubled them, challenged them, changed them.

The next time I went to a conference with my parents and their students, I left the hotel room. Thank you for pushing me out of that door.

Ever yours,

Bethany

glimpses

{glimpses: snapshots from my one and many homes}

The Company of the Barren

The Old Testament readings in Common Prayer this week have followed the story of Hannah, a childless woman who prayed for a son, conceived, and then surrendered that son to the Lord (1 Samuel 1). I've known this story my entire life, but today Hannah's tale has turned my heart toward the company of the barren. I think about all the women in the Bible who wait for children--not only Hannah, but her sisters Sarah, Rachel, Ruth, Elizabeth. Again and again we see how God turns these long-expected children into prophets, patriarchs, and ancestors of the Messiah.

Is this only a pattern for Bible stories? How does God bless the company of the barren in an age where there are very few things that a young, educated, American woman cannot have if she wants it?

As a chaste person (can I say that without sounding affected?), questions about childbearing have long been distant from my concerns. Until I was nearly grown, I assumed that most people had children as my parents did: they planned a baby, had her, and then stopped. Only as I left college did I begin to hear snatches of the joy, uncertainty, serendipity, and agony that surrounds questions of having--or not having--children.

My own friends represent a variety of convictions and experiences. Some do not use birth control, others waited years before having children right on schedule. Some have given birth to a series of healthy, easy babies, others have miscarried year after year. Many have adopted. Some are still waiting to conceive.

These experiences concern me because I love my friends. I want to know how to pray for the couple who has miscarried, and to intercede for a man and woman who wait to adopt. Being in church has given some guidance for these prayers: I have heard prayers for healing, prayers that a woman might  carry her child to term, prays for funds for an adoption to go through.

But I have never heard a church pray that the child of a barren woman would become a prophet. That's no surprise, I suppose: prophecy doesn't look much like most Americans' idea of happiness. When I pray for my friends who wait for children, should I pray that they give birth to an Isaac, a Samuel, a wild Baptizer?

What should childless women learn from the fervor of Hannah or the cynicism of Sarah?

I ask these questions for my friends, but as I type it strikes me that I might also ask for myself. For I, too, am childless. Though not physically barren, I have no children, and I see no sign that I will soon. Some days I am thankful that I have no children to tend, and other days it grieves me. I don't know if I wait for a husband, or for the day when I have the resources to foster or adopt, or both.

In the meantime, or perhaps for all my earthly life, I am in the company of the barren. Tell me, church: tell me, Bride of Christ, what this means.

"He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!" (Psalm 113.9 ESV).

Freedom from, freedom for

Laura Ingalls Wilder was not allowed to sew clothes for her doll on Sunday. Reading this in the Little House books as a child, I realized that not everyone loved Sundays as much as I did.  Until I was in second or third grade, I was convinced that "Sunday" was so named because the sun was always bright on church days (this is a rather strange conclusion for a child of grey midwestern winters, but then, induction has never been my strength). As my parents and I would walk to church, I would imagine that the birds sitting on the telephone wires were arranging themselves upon avian pews in preparation for worship.

Not everyone who grows up in a Sabbath-keeping household has such fond memories of Sundays. I have a friend who is reluctant to call home on Sundays for fear that she might let slip that she did her laundry after church. Even as a grown woman, she fears the disapproval of her sabbatarian parents. Even without irksome memories of keeping a Sabbath, many Christians seem ready to dismiss the idea of sabbath-keeping without any discussion, much less any prayer.  "That's just legalism," I've heard more times than I can count. Or they will invoke Mark 2.27: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."  I don't contest that Jesus challenged many of his culture's rigid ideas about keeping the Sabbath holy, but I think it is worth considering Mark 2.28, as well: "So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath."

I cannot claim to understand all of what Jesus means in Mark 2, but I do know that Christ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matt 5.17), and the command to keep the Sabbath holy is one of the central laws God gives to his people.  As I have tried to show in other posts (here and here, for example), keeping the Sabbath as a day of worship and rest is both discipline and liberation.

Because I know that Sabbath-keeping has a tendency to turn into rigid rule-keeping, I have not yet provided a list of practices for keeping Sundays as a holy day.  However, I want this to be a blog that integrates ideals and practices. What I offer here is not a prescription for a holy Sabbath, but a glimpse of my own small, evolving habits of consecrated rest. Next Monday, I will discuss habits that I do not yet practice, but which I hope to begin observing.

On Sundays, I free myself from....

Professional obligations
     I love my work, but come Saturday night, I set aside my lesson plans, my grading, my research, and my writing. During seasons when work is stressful, Sundays are days to have faith that "when God made time, he made enough of it." At times when work is satisfying and joyful, Sundays are days of release and humility: I remember  that all my work, no matter how eloquent or moving or lasting, will one day pass away.

Getting and spending
      Except in emergencies, I do not shop or spend on Sundays, nor do I research possible purchases nor update my budget spreadsheet. I let go of my instinct for gathering, focusing instead on contentment with what I have.
      I try to extend this practice to eating out, as well. Whether or not the employees at a restaurant are Christians, I don't want to support markets that thrive on Sundays. This can be tricky, since many people use Sunday lunch as a chance to build relationships with friends from church.  Once I am established in a church community, I try to suggest alternatives to eating out, such as a potluck in my home. However, of all my practices, this is probably the one I most often set aside.

Sometimes, I free myself from being awake.

Housework
     I dedicate time each Saturday night for cleaning house, not only because I don't want to do the very real work of scrubbing, washing, and arranging on Sunday, but because waking to a clean, tidy space on Sunday morning is one way I welcome the Sabbath as a treasured guest.

Sorrow
     Rarely do I listen to the news on Sunday, and I am careful not to watch movies or read books that will make me sad. This might seem like escapism, but it is not: it is my challenge to the hard news, shocking realities, and brutal facts I let break my heart six days a week. On those six days, I ask God to show me how I can fight the darkness, but on Sundays, I surrender my feeble weapons, trusting that it is God who truly gives victory.

On Sundays, I free myself for....

Celebration
     As a Baptist girl, I did not grow up with any knowledge of fasting and feasting as spiritual practices, but as an adult, I use a number of weekly "fasts" to set Sunday apart as a holy, joyful day. On Sundays, I sweeten the hot tea that I have drunk plain all week. On Sundays, I often serve meat and make desserts. On Sundays, I wear my prettiest dresses and watch movies. During the winter, I end my Sundays with a long, soaking bath instead of a quick, conservation-conscious shower.

Silence
    I love the hymns, testimonies, and sermons that constitute most Baptist worship services, but after church, I try to set aside at least part of my Sunday for cultivating silence. Remembering the faithful patience of the Quakers, I turn off my music, shun my phone, and close my computer--sometimes for a quarter of an hour, sometimes longer. Sitting in my own home in such silence changes my perception: the light always looks a little different, and without the flow of sounds I have chosen (such as music), I hear new things--train whistles, children, neighbors, rain.

Fidelity
   During the week, my attention is almost always divided. Even as I focus on one task, the day's to-do list continues reeling across my mind's eye. I get distracted while reading by plans for the next day, or I forget something from my grocery list because the long-hunted word for my thesis interrupts my search for brown rice or tomatoes. On Sundays, I attend to one thing at a time. I don't plan for the week to come, even if the plans are happy ones. I exchange my computer, with its ever-alluring tabs and windows, for the relative austerity of a letter-paper. I go for a walk and pay attention to what I am seeing, rather than what I need to do when I return.

Remember, I see these habits in terms of freedom, not force.  As human practices, these observances are only holy insofar as they make me more like Jesus. I would not force them upon any brother or sister, but I have invited my friends to join me in seeking ways to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

Will you join me in discussing and practicing what it means to follow "the lord of the Sabbath"? What, if anything, do you free yourself from or for on the Sabbath?

How to Feel at Home on the Gulf Coast

For a little more than a fortnight, Alabama has been my home. I spent a week unpacking, a week working, and then, a week entertaining guests. Last Sunday I took a two-hour Megabus ride from Mobile to New Orleans. There I met up with my aunt, uncle, and one of my cousins from Houston. We spent a few days exploring the Big Easy, including its abundance of beignets, pralines, and gumbo. We wandered the French Quarter, tried on Venetian masks, toured a plantation, and (my favorite) saw the sculpture garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Beignets at Cafe Du Monde

New Orleans Museum of Art

From New Orleans, we drove back to Mobile.  I was a little concerned about how comfortably four people could inhabit my wee flat, but having so many guests helped me feel at home in some surprising ways. Here are some things I learned--or was reminded--during their visit:


1. Taking the back roads is (almost) always better

Returning from New Orleans, we abandoned I-10 for Hwy 90, which runs within sight of the Gulf for most of its course through Mississippi. We stopped several times along this road, enjoying houses, train depots, and coffee shops that looked nothing like the shops and buildings I know from Indiana, Texas, or Tennessee. Old roads tend to go through the hearts of towns and cities, to challenge hurried and harried travel, to veer away from homogenous chains and obnoxious billboards.

Being touristy in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

Within Mobile, we also ventured off the main roads several times.  Not all of these routes actually took us to our destinations, but they did give me glimpses of the city I might not otherwise have seen, such as the railroad yards and docks that help me see what it means to live in a true port city.

2. Wandering is wonderful

I prefer to do my wandering on foot, but my apartment location doesn't really allow that. However, my aunt and uncle were more than happy to drive all around my neighborhood and city to see what there is to see. Thanks to them, I discovered that the grocery store down the road sells boiled peanuts, a Southern treat I had never tried. We also found a little restaurant across the bay that serves delicious shrimp and grits, a dish I am now determined to learn to cook.

Enjoying "the South's favorite snack" with my uncle

3. Hospitality is home-making

My aunt kept saying, "We're making such a mess of your clean apartment!" but I was happy to see dishes in the sink, leftovers in the fridge, and unfamiliar shoes on the doormat. Of course I like to keep things clean, but hosting my family was my first chance to really use most of my space, cookware, towels, and more. Watching beloved people move through my rooms, I seemed to hear them say, "This is your place, your home. Otherwise, how could we be here with such ease?" I'm so thankful they came, and I cannot wait until my next guests arrive.  Could it be you?


How do you make yourself at home in a new place? And when are you coming to visit me in Mobile?

How to receive a letter

In college, my friend Emily coined the phrase "postal elation" to describe the experience of receiving "real mail" in our campus boxes. Real mail had to be personal: most often it was a parcel, letter, or postcard from friends or family members back home. At first, postal elation was a by-product of novelty, for college was the first time most of us wrote and received real mail consistently. My parents were my first faithful correspondents, but Julianna became a witty pen pal after we served together at the Houston Baptist Mission Centers the summer after my freshman year. The next year, my brother* Lennon began to write me copious letters from bootcamp and, later, from Iraq, while Mr. H courted me through scores of finely-penned epistles. 


I cultivated my habits of letter-writing throughout college and graduate school, and I like to think I do pretty well as an author of mail-worthy words (for some ideas for writing your own letters, you can read this post from last year). Today, three wonderful letters in my still-new mailbox have prompted me to think about how to extend the elation of receiving.  Just as we should learn how to give gifts with joy, we should attend to the art of receiving a gift--even one as slim as a letter--with grace. 

* My reasons for calling Lennon my brother is a story for another day. He's one of my oldest and dearest friends, and during high school he lived with my family for a time. 

My first real mail in Alabama

How to Receive a Letter

- Enjoy your walk to the mailbox. Use checking the mail as a much-needed break from some kind of good work. Take a deep breath. Consider going barefoot.

- Don't open the letter immediately. Enjoy the anticipation of what will be inside. If you have deep pockets, slip the letter inside and let it travel with you through the rest of your day.

- Make sure your house (or at least a corner of it) is clean and ordered before you open the letter. Prepare your house or room as though the author of the letter were actually coming to visit you. Or, if you don't want to clean, take the letter to a special place -- your porch, a tree, a favorite coffee shop -- and read it there.

- Savor the physicality of the letter before you open it. Pay attention to its weight in your hand, stroke the texture of the paper, note the curves and quirks of the handwriting. You might even smell it, especially if it is a billet-doux. 

I use a ledger book I found at a yard sale.

- Record the letter in a correspondence log. Note the date received, author, and location. Look back over this log periodically and enjoy seeing the names and places. (I also log letters that I send in the same way).

- If you are alone, read the letter, or at least part of it, aloud. Imagine the voice of the writer reading it to you.

- Don't rush. Pause, ponder, and consider after each paragraph.

- Read the letter again after a few hours or a few days.

- Be intentional with what you do with the letter after enjoying it. Some people keep all the letters they receive, some people don't. But whether you store it in a box, save it in an album, burn it or recycle it, make sure you have replied thoughtfully and carefully with a letter of your own.

How do you receive letters?