“Is This a Safe Place?”

Acts 2:43-47

Wrote David Fisher in The 21^st Century Church this question asked by a woman seeking a new church home: “Can this church be a safe place to heal and grow?”

Wrote Doug Bixby in his book The Honest to God Church: “Inviting people who are struggling with life can be a wonderful blessing for your congregation. Love should always be at the center of our identity as Christians, and offering grace graciously is one of the primary ways we can love the people who come into our churches seeking help for their lives.”

[And]: “New people coming into our churches are often in a state of crisis. They need to experience God’s grace, and they need to be introduced to it in a gentle way, because the human soul is often filled with fear and can be frightened.”

Wrote Julia Duin, Religion Editor for the Washington Times, in her book Quitting Church: “Perhaps [some people] have not experienced churches that make you feel lonelier going out than you did coming in. Today’s church is not the neighborly, participatory place it once was.”

Wrote Jon Tyson in his article “Renewing Cities Through Missional Tribes:” “I first met Anna [a non-Christian, by the way] when she came to our apartment for a church group. An actress, waitress, and recovering alcoholic, she was desperate to find her place in the city… When I asked her why she bothered to return [to the group’s meetings], it was if she struggled to articulate the motive in her heart. Eventually she responded, ‘I guess I was hoping to find somewhere to belong… I’m just pretty lonely and struggle to find people I trust’.”

As those quotes make it clear people all around us are suffering from loneliness and alienation: people in one kind of crisis or another, people seeking a place to belong, people seeking a safe place in which to heal and grow, people who have been hurt, often by churches, people who are hungry to meet Jesus, people who long to be loved unconditionally, people in need of grace. In one way or another they are all asking the question posed to David Fisher, “Can this church be a safe place to heal and grow?” A question we should be asking of ourselves: “Is this a safe place?”

By safe I don’t mean a place where anything goes, no questions are asked, no commitments are required, and from which accountability is absent. By safe I mean a church where people can come as they are and be met with love and grace, a place where they can introduced to Jesus and nurtured in the faith. My prejudiced opinion is that Grace Presbyterian is such a place, a church that I would describe using the words of a very wise retired pastor as he and I were discussing another congregation I served, a place of “compassionate conservatism instead of a mean fundamentalism.” In other words, a place to be lovingly taught what it means to follow Jesus – not a place where folks are threatened with hell if they don’t say the right words or spout the correct doctrinal verbiage.

A reality we need to face is that people are more and more finding places other than the church where they can belong and find friendship and community: Starbucks, McDonald’s, internet cafes, the internet itself. Places described in the words of the country song, “I Love This Bar.” Come as you are whoever you are. Or in the theme song from Cheers (another bar) “where everybody knows your name.” Whoever thought that bars could be more gracious and loving than churches? But you know what? Sometimes they are; and that’s not so much a plug for bars as it is a criticism of churches. As Julia Duin wrote, there are some churches where you feel more lonely coming out than you did going in.

The church described in this morning’s text from Acts was not such a place. What kind of place was it? Well let’s take a look. It was a place where people could hear and be loyal to the story and words of Jesus as delivered by the original disciples. It was a church where new members were taught how to be disciples.

It was marked by a strong fellowship. There was no social or economic division. The people practiced Christ-like love. There was among that congregation a strong sense of responsibility toward one another. There was a unity of faith, worship, and care, and a risky commonality of purpose. They were marked by glad and generous hearts.

A major part of their fellowship was table fellowship. Folks shared meals with one another – and not just Communion.

This was a praying church. They prayed together. They prayed individually. They sought guidance from God before they ever witnessed to anyone. And a worshipping church. They gave honor and praise to an awesome God, one whose Spirit enabled the apostles to perform wonderful demonstrations of God’s power.

And in the midst of all that they were a congregation that non-believers found attractive. People liked them. People liked what they saw. It was obvious that they loved one another. It was obvious that they had been changed in wonderful ways. To use some words from I Peter, folks could tell that those earliest followers of Jesus had been delivered from darkness into God’s marvelous light.

Day by day that church grew. Why? Because people not only heard the Gospel, they also saw its affects. They were drawn to this church, a church where they could come as they were and where everybody learned their names. They experienced love. They experienced grace. They experienced Christian hospitality. Most of all they experienced Jesus.

The kind of evangelism practiced by that church is what I’d describe as “good vibrations evangelism.” Some of you may remember this line from and old Beach Boys song: “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations. You’re sendin’ out excitetations.” They were singing about girls, sex, and other adolescent themes. But the truth is that for better or worse churches send out vibrations. People can sense where the Spirit is at work. They can also sense where it isn’t.

Years ago in a Bible study at another church one of the ladies wished out loud that when people walked by the doors of her church they would feel the Spirit’s presence. She wanted to be part of a Christian fellowship that sent good vibrations out into the community and the world. Unfortunately her wish – her prayer – wasn’t answered at that particular church. Whatever spiritual vibrations it sent out were not the work of the Holy Spirit. It was not a safe place to heal and grow. I can honestly say that some of the leaders in that church wouldn’t have recognized the Gospel if it walked up and bit them on the butt.

Almost eight years ago, as I was interviewing with Grace’s search committee, I wasn’t sure that my moderately conservative to moderately liberal theology was going to mesh with the church’s self-identified form of a very conservative theology – sometimes I still ask myself that same question. But in a moment of honesty by which I surprised myself, I made it very clear to the committee that I wanted to do ministry with a group of people who loved Jesus. From the very beginning I sensed that Grace was made up of such people. You guys were sending out some very good vibrations. So questions and all, here I am.

My question of the moment is this: “Is it obvious to folks who visit and otherwise interact with us that we love Jesus?” I know that we take worship, prayer, and the study of Scripture very seriously. I’m pretty sure that the leaders of this congregation do recognize the Gospel. As I said earlier this body of believers is marked by a compassionate conservatism rather than a mean form of fundamentalism. But when folks are in our midst or in our orbit, can they tell that we love Jesus? Maybe more importantly, do we let them know that we love Jesus, and that we love him more than we do styles of worship, Presbyterian polity, or even doctrinal purity?

And here’s the big one: do they know that we love them? Are we sending out the right kind of vibrations? Are we okay with people coming as they are? Are we willing to learn their names? Can they experience healing and nurture here? Can they sense the presence of the Spirit here? When they walk back out into the world, do they feel less lonely than they did coming in? Do they want to come back? Do they invite others to come with them? If the answer to those questions is yes, then we are similar to that church described in today’s text, a place where people can know that we are “are praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.” A place that is most assuredly safe. Amen.