Church Hospitality

I have been a visitor, member or guest of NUMEROUS area churches over my lifetime. Most of them were Baptist but some were not. Some were VERY LARGE and some were very small. (I’m adding this footnote now: I’m still looking for a practicing Jew who will schlep me along to Temple with them because that’s about the only “church” I haven’t visited yet.)

Anyway, I was born and raised in a Baptist church. I began taking piano lessons when I was 5 years old because I liked to sing. (This made no sense to me as I got older so I asked why I was enrolled in piano class when I wanted to sing. Mama said when she was growing up, music was music and if you sang, you learned to play an instrument, therefore...) I hated the piano… hating practicing, hated memorizing notes, rests and symbols. In between the time that I finally discovered that I do not have the discipline to be a pianist and the time that I began to be a pianist anyway, I played around on all of the church pianos available to me. My mom was a member of a traveling gospel singing group, I sang solos and played piano solos (never singing and playing at the same time…I wasn’t that talented), mom and I sang at different places and every family reunion on my mom’s side turned into a hoe down. I am not joking. Lots of singers and pickers and grinners on that side. This is where I partly learned my Screen Door Alto. I digress.

Along with being involved in the music end of things, my parents were also Youth Directors for approximately eight years. I was an only child so it came down to, “Do we take her or find a babysitter every time?”. They had meetings every week. You do the math. I got taken. I spent a lot of time running around outside, watching crawfish run backwards into their holes in the ground, kicking over crawfish mounds, scaring the guineas that belonged to the people across the street, finding guinea nests, picking the black seeds from Bahia Grass from my clothes and doing flips on the metal bar that was built to keep people from driving into the air conditioner. All of this contributed to the freckled mess that I am now. But, I also spent 15 years or so watching church people. Just watching. Hundreds of them. Mannerisms, rituals, traditions, habits, reactions…just watching.

There is a very large church in the Hattiesburg area, we’ll not name names, that I was a member of for about 10 years as an adult. The largest, most impersonal church you’ve ever seen. At the time though, it was a breath of fresh air from the smaller churches where you were a part of 12 different committees at one time. At least there was enough people to run the groups! At least there was a paid pianist and I wasn’t roped into banging out “Just As I Am” every Sunday. But after a while, I began realizing I had no friends from this church. Ten years of membership, Sunday School, classes, choir practice, service and no connections. How sad. If I wasn’t there, nobody noticed. I knew from all of those other churches that this was not how it was supposed to be. I missed having a pastor who actually knew my name.

I searched around for a few years, a few different denominations and I found Trinity Episcopal. I found more welcome in one Sunday at Trinity than a year at that other church. Even before I became involved in any group or committee of the church or put one dollar in the offering plate, people knew my name. They introduced themselves. Told me they were happy to see me there. They extended hospitality and welcome, kindness and concern. They didn’t ask me if I could play the piano.

Our sermon today was about the community that church membership can give you. Unfortunately, just being in a church does not automatically mean that you’ll have a community to depend upon. I’ve learned that the hard way at an early age. I’ve had adults look at my 12 year old self and say, “Where were you and your parents last Sunday? There was nobody here to play the piano.” Even at 12, I wanted to reply, “Then perhaps you need to hire a pianist.” I was able to refrain myself just barely.

The church has to be made up of caring and kind individuals for a church community to work properly and too many of our churches do not put a priority on kindness, love, compassion, concern and listening. You must have people who are not too busy to ask about you and your family. People who are not so unconcerned that they don’t take the time to extend friendship. People who value you not for what you can do for the church or what you can add to the church but for you yourself. This is what a good church is made of and the support you have in this type of church is priceless beyond measure. This is what I’ve found in Trinity.

Did I mention I don’t have to play the piano?