Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:2
During a recent worship service in our sanctuary, a child wandered in and joined in our worship. At first, many of us assumed that she was with someone else in the sanctuary, and then, as she moved around and explored items, we realized that she wasn't with anyone.
She was an angel, visiting us unexpectedly. We had great people in the congregation who stepped up and figured out where she came from and contacted her family. She went home safely. But along the way, she blessed us with her sense of wonder during our worship.
I was reminded of the Letter to the Hebrews, when they were encouraged to open their homes and be ready to receive guests at any times. Sometimes angels come to check out us, and if we aren't ready, we won't be blessed.
We were ready to receive this angel, and she shared her smiles with us, and cuddled with some of us, and made music with Eva.
Are we ready for guests? Are we taking the time to get church ready to receive guests, or do we just hope and pray that someone else is getting ready? Who is God preparing to come our way?
At least once a month we have new guests checking us out, and we have many people looking us up online every week. In the last month, we had 124 unique visitors for 197 site visits. 85 were new people, and 39 were returning site users. For the past year, we had 2,442 total visits to our website, by 1121 unique users. Visits were up 191% and unique visitors were up 105%. Wow! So many new people visiting our church website!
When people walk thorugh our door, almost 100% have been to our website and watched videos or sermons or worship. How are we working together to make our website as guest-friendly as possible? More importantly, are we ready when a web visitor decides to walk in our doors?
God is working to bless us with new relationships with new people. Let us open our church home and be ready to receive every guest God sends us, even the unexpected angels. Amen.
Pastor Anna-Lisa Hunter
May 28, 2024
Our Christmas Angels, December 2023