Building a Bridge of Invitation
When I married my wife and we moved in to our new home, I carried her across the threshold.Whilst of course this is a romantic gesture, although I did not drop her, I did manage to bump her against the mantel! The threshold often indicates the starting a new stage in your life, or having a new experience. For many people getting across the threshold of the church building has the potential to start both a new relationship and experience in someone’s life. It just in most cases those outside of church need someone to help them over the threshold. Going to church for the first time or the first time in a long time is scary! Those outside need us inside to act as a bridge to cross that scary threshold. Hopefully this poem by Will Allen Dromgoole will illuminate our role of becoming invitational
The Bridge
An old man going a long, high way, Came, at the evening cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and wide and steep, With water rolling cold and deep.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim, The sullen stream had no fears for him,
But he turned, when safe on the other side, And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near, “You are wasting your strength with building here,
Your journey will end with the ending day, You never again will pass this way,
You’ve crossed the chasm deep and wide, Why build you this bridge at eventide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head,”Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today, A youth whose feet must pass this way.
The chasm that was as naught to me, To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be,
He, too, must cross in twilight dim,Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”
For whom would you build a bridge?