We don't want people to just feel welcome, we want them to feel like they belong
It's the difference between a hotel and a home. Both provide shelter, sustenance, rest. A hotel... a good hotel... will make you feel welcome. You can even live in a hotel for long periods of time and be comfortable and secure. But there's no place like home. Home is different for different people. But home is where you belong.
Now here's the flipside. Wanting people to feel like they belong means knowing that the sol cafe is not going to be a home for everyone. We will be nothing more than a hotel, a rest stop, an overnight stay, for many of the travellers we encounter. We will do all we can to be welcoming to all, but we know we won't be the new home for all of Christendom. Not everyone will feel like this is where they belong. God willing, we can help point them home, to where they do belong, to the place God has set out for them.
But for those of us who call the sol cafe our home church, we feel welcome many places, but we belong no where else.
Now here's the flipside. Wanting people to feel like they belong means knowing that the sol cafe is not going to be a home for everyone. We will be nothing more than a hotel, a rest stop, an overnight stay, for many of the travellers we encounter. We will do all we can to be welcoming to all, but we know we won't be the new home for all of Christendom. Not everyone will feel like this is where they belong. God willing, we can help point them home, to where they do belong, to the place God has set out for them.
But for those of us who call the sol cafe our home church, we feel welcome many places, but we belong no where else.
We may even be just that rest stop for the odd Christian traveller. The point in their trip where they find that they're feet hurt from walking around and just want to sit and enjoy a slower moment. Maybe confused by programs and movements in the mainstream Christian world, or just tired, as it is hard work being a Christian in many churches.
Maybe they want to laugh and enjoy the company of believers that will let them be, just be. We let people choose if they come to sol, and choose why they may or may not come again, as best we can without pressure or guilt. We pray, read scripture and do our best to worship, but we do all that as a unique community exposed to the world.
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