You are Still, Always, Welcome
There have been many times over the years when people have left communities I’ve been a part of, or the church altogether. Sometimes they have slowly drifted away, sometimes they have stormed off in anger, and sometimes they have quietly excused themselves as the teaching no longer aligns with who they are or what they believe. At times a wound they have garnered simply cannot heal by staying put. This has been painful as the one who remains. It has been painful when I’ve been the one to go. And it’s been painful when I’ve been the leader doing the teaching. Every time it carves a deep longing in my heart for another way. A way that preserves connection and could even take us all to a deeper, richer, truer place.
By the time I was 10 years old I went to church mostly on my own. I attended the only church in town which happened to be part of the United Church of Canada. The year was 1988 and I was in the fifth grade. It was the first year that I remember any teaching about reproductive health, and I believe the full extent of it included an awkward lesson on naming the reproductive organs of one’s own gender and one lesson trying to ensure that girls wouldn’t be completely traumatized if they happened to start menstruating. I think the boys got to play dodgeball that day. I was very jealous. We were a few years away from discussions about sex and likely a decade or more away from any discussion of sexual orientation even being mentioned in the curriculum. But that year a discussion about sexual orientation which I wasn’t invited into, and clearly wouldn’t have understood even if I had been, shook up the denomination I was a part of. And for reasons I could not yet understand people that I had become familiar with, and considered an important part of my church community got really upset and left. It was the year that the church affirmed the membership and ordination of all people regardless of sexual orientation.
As a reflective adult I understand so much more, but at the time all I understood was that a lot of people were upset with each other. We didn’t cover any of the debate in Sunday School, and so I just continued trying to get perfect attendance and memorizing my weekly bible verse (I would get a small prize at the end of the year for both.) I just kept praying to my best friend Jesus that people would get along. There was a knot of pain and loss, anger and confusion in my heart that has returned many times since then. It’s the knot that tightens when a friend confesses they’ve been abused by someone in the church. It’s the knot that becomes messier when someone I love begins to deconstruct their faith and decides moving away from me is part of that journey. It’s the knot when someone I’ve mentored and held close to my heart acknowledges their sexuality, or mental health struggle, or drug use and the broader community recoils.
These days, that knot—that lingering ache, leads me ask how I might create enough space for people to stay in the room together longer. That I might reclaim the value of ironing sharpening iron. I like to imagine Jesus standing in the centre, with arms wide open, and drawing all sorts of folks to himself. Wise and learned, aged and worn, young and rebellious, pierced, tattooed, proper, adorned, meek, shabby, addicted, free all coming from different directions and bumping into each other as they draw closer. That each one of us might be able to testify to who and how we see, so that our stories become woven together to better testify to a reality that can never be fully known.
I understand better now—through listening—the pain of those who wrestled back then, for so long, to be recognized as part of the church. And I’m glad that they are here. I understand better now, the pain of having a belief that feels foundational reinterpreted, leaving one to no longer recognize a place as home. And I am thankful for those who have held firm in times when change seemed unfaithful.
Some of my most treasured moments have been when those who hold different theological convictions than me have chosen to bless me instead of fight me. To honour my different calling or path instead of condemn it. When the prophetic speaker, offering a message about exercising the power of the Kingdom makes me squirm, but then takes the time to pause and offer a prophetic affirmation of my heart for those on the margins. When the fellow seminarian with the complementarian view affirms my ability as a pastor. (And yes, I have heaps of alternative examples as well—I guarantee I have at least my share of wounds.) It is at these unlikely moments where I think the flavour of God’s Kingdom, of God’s Family, is most rich and flavourful—a complex flavour, simmered over time and over heat. I long for more of these moments.
I long for safer space for longing and churning and considering and unpacking our faith and ourselves. But when the realist creeps in, knowing parting is sometimes necessary and even healthy, I also long for better partings. For mutual blessing even when difference needs to be named and the body needs to be remixed a little. Perhaps, I imagine that as people of faith, we might learn to bless one another and pray for one another when the shifting seperates us, but to be able to say the door remains open and you are still, always, welcome.
