June 2008

In This Issue What is Welcoming? Check this out!: The Search The Search on Facebook Brad Thompson   Visual Interests "What's Search?" "Why Search?"   Ways to Engage Hospitality Team Greeter: Assures all worshipers are warmly welcomed.   Sacred Space: Develops & implements the installation of worship decor for prayer stations & communion table.   Media Assistant: Assists in the visual worship elements. If you would like to help out please contact Suzanne Castle-Rolen at suzanne@uccftw.com   Welcome, Cats & Dogs... "We've never had a cat in our gang before but we can use all the help we can get." --Fagin, Oliver & Company.   This Disney movie came out in 1988 and is about a special friendship that develops between a lost and lonely kitten and a gang of dogs involved in petty larceny. And that quote by Fagin (the voice of Dom DeLuise) is my favorite of the movie. How often is that our case? Here at The SEARCHwe are exploring our core values and this edition of the e-zine is devoted to WELCOMING ALL GOD'S CHILDREN. This part of our DNA is so important as we seek out ways to be a part of the Holy in the ordinary.   How many times I've heard from you...             I've never felt truly welcomed in a place of  worship.             I didn't know church could be for me.             I love being me here in this place.   To be a welcoming people of God means that we not only practice the rite of Christian hospitality when someone enters our sacred space, but that we engage them where they are. How they are. Who they are. This becomes one our our guiding values as we move THE SEARCH into the future.   And who is God sending our way? Who are the cats who are finding themselves partnered with us dogs? And for someone like me that is extremely allergic to cats, how will I be in the same space?    Republicans. Democrats. Independents. Anti-.              Married. Separated. Divorced. Single. Dating.          Infants. Children. Youth. Young Adults. Older Adults.                      White. Black. Brown. All colors of God's handiwork.                   Believers. Unsure. Fringed. De-churched. Seeking.   In the scriptures we are told of the Great Feast of Life, where all will be seated and filled in such ways as we can only dream or imagine. The true test of our value of all God's people will come when we can sit together, next to each other, stranger, friend and eat of the bread and cup without hesitation, pause, or reflection. But only because the One we follow says: Come and Follow Me. Eat and Drink. Be my People and I will Be Your God. For You are Created in the Image of Me.   How then, will we be and become more by this charge?   Who is God asking you and me to welcome to worship?   Recently Shane Claiborne was quoted as saying: "We need to attract the people Jesus attracted: the broken, the confused, the hurting, the abused and the people who walked away angry at Jesus." It is my fervent prayer that The SEARCH is a place that all can come. All. All.   Thanks be to God for you. For all of Life. For the many manifestations of God coming through our doors...and for Zyrtec that I might be with the cats.   - Suzanne Castle-Rolen, Minister  - Brad Thompson, Music Director for The Search   What is Welcoming?   One of our worship values as depicted on the Search Website (www.seekingthesacred.org) is that we are about "Welcoming all God's children to the table of life." Suzanne talked about who surrounds us in the space and about being more than just hospitable to people. I think that there are many different things that being a welcoming community means.   First of all, being welcoming at it's base principles does include being hospitable. Greeting people with a smile and a sincere care for their life is the beginning of the welcome. If we as a body of believers do not even open ourselves up to this kind of welcoming then we will not be able to take the first step in reaching out to those who could potentially make great members of our family of faith.   Another attribute of being welcoming I think is to really emphasize that we are a FAMILY of faith. We are not merely a group of strangers or friends who gather together to worship. We are a true family under God. In seeing The Search this way, I believe that we become even more welcoming. It is one thing to be an outsider coming in and receiving a greeting from a few people, but it means so much more to be welcomed into the family with open arms no matter who you are.   So I challenge us all during our time at The Search and in any other church setting, welcome visitors into the family of faith. God welcomes ALL people at the Lord's table, let's keep delivering this same message of welcome to those who visit whether they look, act, or sound like us or not!    - Alec Ylitalo, Campus Ministry Intern