Years ago I had booked to go to a pastor’s conference at the St Ninian’s Conference centre in Crieff. Sheila and I met there in 1970 so it’s a kind of special place. I led several annual Summer Missions in Crieff in the early 70’s with daily children’s meetings, sports days and open air singing. Crowds of children and parents as helpers spent two weeks of the school holidays doing all this in Macrosty Park.
In 1997 I had booked to spend several days at a conference with one of the finest men I’ve ever met. Not that I had met Eugene Peterson at that point. I had read most of what he had written about the work of being a pastor. His books have been and remain deeply formative of how I think and seek to live, work and preach as a Christian minister.
The week before the Conference Sheila’s mum died, and our family funeral arrangements coincided with the Conference. I couldn’t go, so I cancelled. I was travelling home to Aberdeen the day after the conference finished, so I telephoned St Ninians on the off chance I could speak for a minute or two to Eugene and say thank you for all I had learned from him. He came to the phone and said if I could drop by St Ninians he would be happy to meet, sit on a bench and talk for a while. This man was simply being the kind of person he wrote about; considerate, caring, being gladly inconvenienced, making a gift of time, listening, and happily enjoying the company of those who came his way in the Lord’s good time.
When he met we sat on the bench looking down across the tow towards the hills. He asked me to tell my story, told a little of his own, prayed with me and for our family, took me into the bookstall, bought one of his own books and wrote a lovely greeting inside. That’s the only time I met a man whose love for God and devotion to Jesus were a natural part of who he is and how he relates to people. We emailed a few times after that, and I still have and often use that book, Praying with the Psalms. Eugene died three years ago.
I tell you all this because what happened on that morning diversion to Crieff to meet Eugene Peterson, was nothing all that significant as human affairs and the big moments of history go. But make no mistake. what happened had its own special meaning in the economy of God, showing how God works through the quiet ministry of friendship. I met someone who walked as he talked, and in our sitting and talking together he embodied the welcome he wrote so much about, the welcome of God.
Every time I remember Eugene Peterson taking a phone call from someone he had never met, I remember a particular Bible verse: “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Rom 15.7) This man had just finished a three day conference with over a hundred pastors, and must have been tired and needing some peace. He could have passed a minute or two being polite on the phone, graciously accepting my words of thanks, and then get on with the day. But welcome was for him, a habit of the heart, his default disposition towards others, part of his calling to treat others as Christ had treated him throughout a long life of faith.
Which finally brings me to the point of this week’s pastoral letter, apart from the telling of a story that still vibrates with good memories of a Godly man who would be surprised, even embarrassed, to have this story told. Welcome of others is the pulse of pastoral ministry, and the heart of an authentic mission in Jesus’ name. Paul’s words at the end of Romans were not to the church leaders, but to the whole church. Us.
We are still some way away from life opening up into the freedoms and opportunities we knew before the pandemic. But as we begin to think about our future as a church community, that word “welcome” is a fundamental and essential descriptor of our Christian presence in our town. The glory of God is made known in the welcome we give; in the friendships we build, the words we share into others’ lives, the prayers we say for the help and health of our town, the ways we use our money, our premises and our gifts and skills in service of others, our willingness to shape our worship to the world we live in as ambassadors of Christ. All of this, and much more, is to welcome others as God in Christ has welcomed us.
As God leads us forward, we know the world has changed, and church cannot stay the same in a changing world. We could do worse than make Paul’s instruction our own habit of the heart towards all who come into our lives and our church: “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
(This week's pastoral letter to our church folk in Montrose.)
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