I remember about twenty-five years ago, when I started a Welcoming Committee at a large Methodist church back in Florida.

We stood under red umbrellas and greeted people before and between services. There were several buildings and it was easy for newcomers to need help finding where age-appropriate child care was, or where to take their almost teen for Sunday School. More than that though, as a recent newcomer myself, I had noticed the most difficult part of being a newcomer was entering the sanctuary, for when you approached an empty seat you were often told it was ‘saved’. There was never a sign to that effect, as at a wedding or for the ushers, but there was often a quick scuffling around and tossing Bibles on empty seats, to help one see there was a person coming to occupy that seat. Seeing the rejected faces of the newcomer as they try to continue to ask about seats is really embarrassing for the other people around them, yet it never seems to change the fact that it happens every week.

Sometimes a person will enter a church only once, and possibly forever after use that rejection as a means of branding the church, that denomination, even their whole experience of God as being exclusive, not friendly or welcoming to newcomers; an exclusive club that really doesn’t want new members. That is so sad, since the church was called primarily to share ways to live our lives together, to be an example of inclusive love and acceptance  so more people would want to know Him, attracted by the loving and inclusive way we are  living our lives before them. To hear someone say “I went to church once, but I felt even lonelier than I stay home.” It certainly didn’t feel like God’s home was open to them, the very people we go out into the community to serve and invite to church. What a crazy Catch-22 that is!

The Welcoming Committee was a wonderful addition to that church and for years afterward, when I would run  into people I had known while there, they would smile and say “You were the lady under the red umbrella!” I chose red umbrellas thinking it an obvious way to identify ourselves (our being covered by the blood of Jesus and sheltered from the storms of life),  but then, I was  a visual person, so things like that always seem logical to me.  I remember being thrilled to find 6 red umbrellas at J. C. Penney to start the ministry. I wrote the different categories (Sunday School, Bible Studies, Home Groups, etc. ) on each of the triangle-shaped segments , to separate us from  regular umbrella users at first sight. Our covering led to many other conversations and I understand lasted quite a while, even after God had moved me on.

Today in church I was thrilled as the summer season meant many regulars were on vacation. No one around me was saving seats and new faces filled in around me. It was inspiring to hear the worship voice of the husband of one of my prayer partners next to me, and prompted me to join him in even more joyful praise. I was grateful for the mixing up all around me because it made me pay attention even more than usual.

I love the ladies I normally sit with, and since the first day I arrived they seemed to be saving a seat for me, so I always felt comfortable believing God had led me specifically to this church. But I realize now how many other people He wants to bring here, and they may only come that one time; saving a seat seems not as admirable a trait in church as it may be other places. He knows exactly where we should sit, and if we are told that empty seat is ‘taken’ perhaps we  may obstruct His plans not just for others, but also for ourselves, without even realizing it.

In almost every church I have been a member of, I have always wanted to ask the Pastor to stand at the podium one Sunday and say “Everyone on the right side of the church change places with everyone on the left!” and then wait til that was accomplished before beginning his sermon. The different perspective might change everything for some, who had held those spots through generations. I know it would initially have been unsettling, but how might that have opened their eyes to something or someone they had never before noticed .

God loves to mix things up and take us out of our comfort zones to help us to learn the lessons we are actually going to church to hear about. Unlike musical chairs, a chair isn’t physically removed so one person falls on the floor. But consider if Jesus was coming in the guise of a stranger to see His church, but because we did not recognize Him, we told Him the seat was ‘saved’ (for someone important to us).

It is possible He will do just that one day,  to see if we are really paying attention.