Our Welcome Statement
Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church is committed to loving God and loving neighbor with our whole selves - heart, mind, soul, and strength. As Jesus loved those around him, we believe that all persons are of sacred worth and dignity as part of God’s creation. We welcome all persons into the full life and ministry of our congregation, regardless of race, culture, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or socioeconomic status, education, politics, physical or mental ability, or faith history.
Here's the thing. I’ve been looking over our Glenn welcome statement, so I think I can say this with absolute certainty: You are welcome here at Glenn.
Unequivocally, unreservedly, unconditionally, you are welcome at Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church. That means that whatever your ethnicity, race, or where it is you hale from, you’re welcome. If you voted for Biden, Trump, someone else, or no one, you’re welcome. Documented, undocumented? You’re welcome. Whomever you love, you’re welcome. Maybe you have questions, doubts or misgivings about religion in general and aren’t sure you believe much of anything. You’re still welcome here. In one sense, none of this stuff is really any of our business as a church, because our business is welcoming and caring and offering you something wondrous, something more than what you have now, whatever it is you have now.
It all seems so elementary, doesn’t it? Obvious even, in the most un-shockingly obvious of ways. Because here’s the thing. Here at Glenn, any definition of the person in front of us has to begin in God’s definition of every person: wonderfully and strangely made, bearer of God’s image, human in all humanity’s glory, frailty, gifts, and, yes, sinfulness. So, are you human? You’re welcome here. It’s an amazing, really. We are all human, but we acknowledge also that God doesn’t create with a cookie cutter (that’s where the “wonderfully and strangely made” part comes in).
Everywhere we look these days, angry people are drawing lines that divide others from themselves, but our church draws a circle, and it’s always widening. “Come on in; there’s room.” But here’s the thing, there really is a price of admission. Those who have been welcomed are expected to be welcoming. Grace begets graciousness. I guess you can say that in the church what goes around comes around. And what goes around is God’s care for each person. Once it comes around to us, we keep it going.
Here at Glenn, we paint with a very broad brush. All are loved by God; all are embraced in Christ; all bring something good and beautiful to the church. But here’s the thing. Picking up that broad brush means laying aside some others. It means giving up casual assumptions, simplistic generalizations, name-calling, litmus tests, and stereotypes that belittle whole groups or the person(s) standing in front of you.
It's a liberating moment when we set aside the need to test or judge and instead dedicate ourselves to welcoming. But here’s the thing. We aren’t a club or community group that happens to have a wide-open membership policy. The place/people into which we welcome folks isn’t built on common interests, backgrounds, opinions. The church is grounded in something that is at once transforming, ethereal, eternal, intimate, spiritual, and as real as flesh and blood—God’s steadfast love revealed in Jesus Christ. That steadfast love is the door through which we enter Glenn, and it’s the door through which we head out to “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God” (Micah 6:8).
Every Sunday we gather in that love to celebrate; to sing; to proclaim the grace of Christ; and to remind ourselves of the life-changing, world-changing power of that love. And here’s the thing, of course. You’re welcome to join us.
In Christ,
Mark