“Welcome home”

Dear friends,

“Welcome home.” I heard that phrase many times on my first Sunday back in worship following my vacation this summer. Each time it was uttered, I took a moment as my heart got stuck in my throat. What a wonderful turn of phrase, two words that carry so much more meaning than is evident in their eleven letters.

“Welcome home” is a common greeting around here, not just saved for when folks have been away and return from traveling, but spoken with joy whenever someone enters the building. Seattle First Baptist has striven to be a place of inclusion and belonging for many years. We collectively have many stories about how this has been lived out, one chief among them being the inspiration for Rod Romney writing that beloved hymn “Bring Us Home” after meeting a young man with HIV who was looking for a place to call home.

Though we like to talk about home a lot, it is complicated for many of us. Challenging relationships with families of origin, abuse, dysfunctional relationships, housing insecurity, high home prices, gentrification, colonization…all of these impact how we think about and relate to the concept of “home.”

So as we say with our mouths, “welcome home,” how do we say it with our lives, with our actions and behaviors? Some ways we do this are: extending hospitality through coffee hour; helping elders and those with mobility needs access our spaces; having a supply of snacks and socks at the ready to share with our neighbors experiencing house-less-ness; sharing our monetary resources with partner organizations; showing our values outwardly by flying our progress pride flag and our Black Lives Matter flag and putting encouraging messages on our electronic signboard. And we show this when we greet each other, when we respect each other’s physical boundaries like wearing masks or waving when someone is not comfortable with hugs. We show this when we enthusiastically welcome families with young children, offering to show them around our worship spaces so they can choose where to worship. We show this when we say, “Hi, I’m not sure I’ve met you” or “Hi, would you please remind me of your name?” instead of assuming they don’t want to be talked to, or assuming that they are new. And we show our welcome when we do the hard and good heart-work of confronting our biases so that this place can feel like a community whereas many people as possible can know in their bones they belong.

After traveling on a brief honeymoon and then visiting family in the Midwest and the South, it was so good for me and Scotty to get home, take off our shoes, sit on our couch and snuggle with our cat. And after some time off, it is good for me to be in my office or at my computer or on the phone connecting with you—I missed seeing all of you, and though I know you were in good hands with our on-call pastoral care, I carried you in my heart.

One more thing before I close this letter: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—thank you to all those who made my time off possible. To our fabulous staff—Darren, Ben, Judy, Christian, Dick, Chase, Kellie; to our Pastoral Intern Vanessa; to our Council of Ministries and committee lay leaders; to the Personnel Committee in particular; to all of the congregation for showing up for each other with care: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Won’t you “come home”? Join us on September 10 for Homecoming Sunday—a day in which we celebrate this congregation and rejoice in the blessing of our life together as we worship the Holy and seek to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in this world so that all may know they belong.

I love you and I love being your pastor.

Rev. Anita