Where has the summer gone? It seems as if we were looking forward to it just a minute ago and new we are trying to remember what we did in those lazy, hazy days of summer. Different folk will remember it differently. Some will remember it as having been too hot, and others will suggest it was too cool. Some will have memories of loss in the summer of 2013 and some will remember it for new life.
I hope the folks at Forest Hill United, no matter what the summer has been, will be rejuvenated and ready to be the gospel in the community around us, and the good news to those who are in need of good news.
September and October are most often the months that people venture into a church for the first time. They are going to try the church shopping exercise. It isn’t like the 50’s and 60’s when we went to the closest church of our denomination and found within the burgeoning congregation people who lived nearby and, like us, were part of something new and exciting.
Now people will come a great distance to a church if they are made to feel welcome there. Particularly if congregations closer to home have failed to acknowledge their existence when they went for the ubiquitous coffee time and were left standing in the midst of little groups of people as if they weren’t there at all.
We have mentioned this before, but the fall of 2013 is the time we are going to let people know that we care enough that they made the effort to come through our doors to offer to shake hands. There are folk who are really looking for a church family to join and Forest Hill United could easily be that family. We have lots of room for more people, we are accessible to a degree, we have plenty of parking, and with all the marvelous refurbishing that has been done over the summer, we are looking like we are ready for a big party.
We are ready to be a welcoming congregation, to put into action the words: “Love your neighbour as yourself”, to welcome YOU as we would want to be welcomed ourselves.
Blessings,
Katharine