Risking welcome - Welcoming risk

This welcome sign is built into the entrance pillars of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A good sentiment but difficult to live with. Often the ideal rather than reality. Many churches struggle to be truly welcoming places because welcome involves risk. It involves acceptance of those who are "not like us". It involves recognition of other ways and other standards that we may well find alien. Above all it involves acknowledging that we may in fact be the aliens. Whatever, we are all God's children, accepted, loved and welcomed. To be as extravagant as the God we serve demands that we take the risk and discover what it really means to welcome all God's children - especially those who seem like strangers.