The first six weeks of my sabbatical concluded earlier this week and I walked back through the doors of Prince of Peace on Wednesday morning. Honestly, it felt like coming home. To be greeted by so many warm smiles, to return to the familiar surroundings, to be delighted by the stories of growing ministry that have happened, all contributed to a heightened sense of belonging. This place matters to me.
The concept of home has been on my mind these past six weeks. And deepening our understanding of home will shape our worship life together over this coming month. At the outset, I want to invite you to consider what are qualities that transform any particular place from something utilitarian into something quite extraordinary. In your own experience, what has made your house into a home?
One of my companions during my time of sabbatical has been the book Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement, by Reformed Theologians Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh. This book was one of the resources that Alan Graham drew from in his book Welcome Home(less), which the congregation read together during Lent. Alan is the founder of the Community First! Village in Austin, TX, who I was able to meet while visiting this remarkable ministry in April.
Bouma-Prediger and Walsh make the following claim as they introduce their work…
We think that “home alone” is actually an oxymoron. There is no such thing as being home alone. Home is a matter of community. Home is about belonging, connectedness, and shared memory. Home involves relationships of trust. While we may live alone, we can never be at home alone. To be at home in the world, indeed to be at home within ourselves, we must be in a home that is shared. Home is a matter of community.
p. xi
I have been wondering how the church and this concept of home relate. The church, of course, isn’t just a place we go, it’s something we are. For the church then to feel like home, this reality is rooted in the collection of people and the relationships we share. The church too, is a matter of community.
I’m eager to discover where our conversations and explorations will lead in these coming weeks.
May God welcome you home today. -Pastor Peter
Let us pray… God, you have blessed us with a home, formed in creation and found in you. Continue to make your church a place of homecoming and a community where no one is alone. Amen.