Radical Welcome: Practicing Jesus' Hospitality

November 2 - November 23 with Lisa Towle
NOTE: Nov. 2 class will be at 9am

"The Episcopal Church welcomes you." Just about every church wants to be known as the friendly church, the hospitable church. The real challenge is to become more than a slogan; it is to be a community of faith that is radically welcoming while it celebrates the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the premise of the book "Radical Welcome" by The Rev. Stephanie Spellers, an Episcopal priest. Over the course of five weeks, we'll explore this book and get down to the root-level, the Jesus-level, in order to answer some key questions: "What does it mean to offer a radical welcome?" "Just how do we become God's radically welcoming people?" "Are we ready for the transformation and relationship God seeks in us and with us?" (Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the first class.)

Among other things, we're going to talk about what the words "welcome" and "the other", and what they mean to us individually and collectively as the Church of the Good Shepherd; we're going to look at how Episcopal churches - especially urban, downtown churches - have begun to interpret "Jesus hospitality" here at the tumultuous start of the 21st century; and we're going to ask what, if anything, we do about acting with "holy boldness" singly and as members one of another. (Just what is holy boldness anyway?)

Something to think about before the first class: "...God keeps getting bigger, and we have to expand with God."  

Facilitator: Lisa Towle. CGS member Lisa Towle is a wife, mother, writer, editor and journalist. Lisa is in her second three-year term as president of the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of NC. She is also a member of the diocese's Millennium Development Goals Committee and the Botswana-North Carolina Companion Link Committee.