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Friday, September 9, 2011

The Invitational

Below is an article from the September issue of the Wheatland Parish newsletter:

            I have now been the pastor of the Wheatland Parish for about two months.  In that time, a lot of people have asked Wanda me how we like living in Gettysburg, as well as how we like having three churches:  Gettysburg, Agar, and Onida.

            The answer is that we like it a lot.  The people in all three towns have been very welcoming to us.  We’ve managed to get to know quite a few of you, although not as many as we’d like yet.  We’ll continue to work on it, and we thank you for your patience with us in that regard.

            It’s a challenge to get to know the people in three separate communities, of course, but it’s an exciting challenge.  We enjoyed going to both the Potter County and the Sully County fairs.  I’m enjoying being a part of both the Gettysburg Rotary Club and the Wheatland Lions Club.  I look forward to going to as many football and volleyball games for both Gettysburg and Sully Buttes as I can in the weeks to come.

            In that regard, let me reiterate something I said in my first newsletter article.  If there’s something going on in any of these three towns, don’t hesitate to invite us to it.  We’re taking both the Potter County News and the Onida Watchman, and we’re trying to keep track of everything that’s going on, but we’ll inevitably miss things sometimes.  If you’ll let us know what’s happening in each town, it’ll help us out a lot.  I’d rather have eight people tell me about the same thing than have nobody tell me about it.

            What we’d love even more, of course, is if you’d invite us to go with you.  I hope to find someone to sit with at the football and volleyball games, but it’s even more fun if I know there will be someone like that ahead of time.  If we go with you, you can introduce us to your friends and we can make even more connections in all three towns.

            That’s a good way to help a church grow, too.  While it’s a good thing to invite people to come to church, it’s an even better thing to invite them to come to church with you.  Offer to pick them up, walk into church with them, and sit beside them.  Ease them into conversation with the people around them (I understand that, in a small town, they may already know lots of people there, but the first time you come to a different church can still be awkward, and some help getting conversations going can be a huge blessing).  Help them with when we stand up and when we sit down.  Help them find their way through the hymnal.

            Whenever we’re going somewhere we’re not used to going, it can be awkward.  That’s true whether we’re going to a service club, a football game, or church.  Having someone help us through those first, awkward times is a wonderful thing.  You can be that someone for somebody when you invite them to come to church with you.  You can be a blessing for them, you can help the church grow, and you can help make disciples, just like Jesus told us to do.

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