All Are Welcome Here

“All are welcome here,” read the sign on the church door. I pulled on it, and it was locked.

“So maybe all are welcome here, " I though, "but only through the door on the other side.” I tried that entrance and it was locked too. Then I walked around to the other side to see if there was some other way in. As I walked, I couldn’t help but think that it sure was difficult to get inside this place that claimed to be welcoming me.

I walked around the whole building to find that there weren't any other doors.

I double checked my watch, and verified that it was 10:30 a.m., the same time the church’s webpage said that services started. I just moved here and didn't know anyone yet, so I really wanted to try this place out. They just won't let me in.

Although it was nice to know I was welcome to stand outside the door.

I wandered around for a bit, wondering if maybe the Rapture had come, taking this congregation up to Heaven and leaving the rest of us behind.

This was a fear instilled in my childhood, growing up in strict Southern Baptist home.

My earliest memory of Christianity was hearing about the Rapture--how some day Jesus would suddenly and unexpectedly lift the True Believers into the clouds, leaving the rest of world to go on without the chosen.

I always waited until the last minute to finish my homework for this very reason. If Jesus might come at sundown, I wasn’t going to spend my last afternoon on earth learning vocabulary words and solving equations that would be of no use in Heaven. 

If some event were coming up that I dreaded—dinner at grandma’s, an exam I hadn’t studied for, or even being forced to go back to church for Sunday night services after already having spent four hours there in the morning—I would pray fervently that Jesus would return before I had to face it.

But he never did.

To this day, I still procrastinate. It’s a habit I learned in church.

But if the Rapture had occurred here, it was strange that the parishioners stopped to lock the front door on their way to the clouds. It had to be something else.

Thankful that I had survived the potential Apocalypse, I went about investigating the mysterious closure of this church.

I checked the sign in front of the door, but all I saw was the slightly inaccurate, "All Are Welcome Here" sign. I guess this was a church that didn't take a literal approach to its application of its text.

As I continued to poke around and started to feel slightly less welcome, I wondered, "Do people ever call the police because strange guys are trying to get into church on a Sunday morning?"

Before I gave up, I took one last look at the front entrance. When I looked at the wall by the front steps, a printed card was affixed to the entrance way. It once had said services started at 10:30, but someone had drawn a crude small line though the printed numbers with a marker. A few inches under the line, someone had handwritten “9:00.”

Apparently, no one had bothered to change the listed time on the church's website. Maybe they were too busy watching the sky for the return of our Lord. Regardless, if all were welcome at this church, they didn’t bother to tell anyone else in a way that would allow them to get inside. 

I pondered what to do, as I stood by the locked front door, having realized that this congregation had already met, exchanged greetings, gotten their weekly dose of religion and locked the door behind them.

"All may be welcome there," I thought "but only on this place's secret terms." I thought about driving across town to go to a different church, but I had a long list of errands to run, so I turned around and headed home, thinking that perhaps I'd been left behind after all.