An expectant dad's sympathy for Nicodemus
Nicodemus is perplexed. There's a lesson for us in his confusion.
What if no one shows up?
Asking the question gives people space to discern the answer.
"Do you need a place to pray?"
Toward the end of last semester, a student walked through the door at St. Francis House, the campus ministry I serve, and abruptly stopped, standing inside the entryway. Frozen. I was passing through the space, which connects the chapel and the lounge, and stopped to introduce myself. "What brings you in today?" I asked him.
His answer expected the question.
When does a church (building) first feel strange?
The question is one my first boss liked to ask at staff meetings. It's important to say he was asking through the perspective of visitors. First-timers or travelers. Equally for people who would come to make the church their home and those who would never visit town again. For all of these, on a Sunday, when does a church first feel strange?"When you go up to communion," one of us offered one time.