Churches claim to be places where all are welcome. But who, in reality, is welcome in our churches? I say “in reality” because welcome is an interesting term in itself. What exactly do we mean by “welcome”? Few (outside the old brethren requiring a letter of recommendation) would stop anybody coming in at the front door. But is somebody welcome just because we don’t slam the door in their face? If we think welcome means a little more than just letting them in the room, what do we mean?

Welcome does mean more than just letting people enter the building. Welcome also means showing interest in them and being glad that they are here. It means showing them the courtesy and respect of listening to them, hearing from them, not just tolerating their presence, but actively inviting them in. Welcome extends to how we treat people and how we engage with them.

For some churches, that sort of welcome is only for people exactly like them. Unless you look, sound, dress and act like them you are not really going to be welcomed in. You may be tolerated, but you won’t necessarily be welcomed.

For other churches, they are happy for people to look a bit different to them – so no problem if you’re an African or East Asian in a majority white church – so long as you essentially think largely the same things as us and act similarly to us. The most common form of diversity we see in our churches is ethnic diversity. But that ethnic diversity is often highly educated where cultural distinctions become less pronounced and people have been trained to think and act in a particular way, especially as far as shared workplaces are concerned. People may look ethnically different to one another in such places, but they still largely think the same way, act the same way and have significant shared assumptions so far as behaviour goes. There is ethnic diversity but not so much cultural diversity.

Other churches still might be happy with both ethnic and cultural distinctions on display. But they limit their diversity to ethnic cultural diversity. They are quite happy for black, white and Asian to mix in the same church and are more than happy for people of different nationalities and ethnicities to express their cultural differences. But these might well be limited to areas where cultural diversity has limited impact on others such as styles of dress. There is a level of diversity on display here, but it is limited to areas where it does not particularly impact the majority culture.

Occasionally, there is class and ethnic cultural diversity. In the best cases, people of different classes and people with different ethnic and national background can fully express their culture and background and this is reflected in various ways in what happens in the church. This is not just seen in areas that have little to no impact on the majority culture – such as the clothes others wear – but in areas that do impact them, such as the food eaten together, the songs sung, the languages spoken, who is permitted to speak and in the tolerance of certain behaviours that might culturally jar but are not sinful.

One of the hardest points of welcome is for those whose lifestyle and background are so diametrically opposed to biblical ethics. We are often happy to have very messy people in our churches, so long as when they come they effectively follow our rules and assimilate to how we do things. Even then, many are a little wary when messy people arrive because they suddenly do things, and speak about things, and have a series of significant issues going on that most cradle-Christians have never actually encountered in their lives. Neither personally nor amongst anyone they have been close with. Many are simply ill-equipped to deal with the extremely messy reality of certain people’s lives and don’t wish to welcome such things into the church because they are, well, messy.

But the question remains: who is truly welcome? What does welcome look like for people who openly and evidently do not subscribe to biblical ethics? Is there space for the rattling addict? Is there space for the ex-prisoner? Is there a place for the prostitute caught in cycles of addiction? Is there space for the homeless? And not just space for them, but an actual welcome?

Of course, that doesn’t mean we are welcoming people into membership who haven’t really trusted in Jesus and show little evidence of repentance. But at the same time, it surely does mean eating with people, showing them respect, sharing Christ with them and speaking to them as though they were important guests in our family home. If Jesus ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, it bears asking why our churches aren’t full of prostitutes, drug addicts and those considered to be national outcasts. Why are such people almost never found in our buildings and why can so few Christians name a single addict, prostitute or criminal as a friend?

Jesus could. He regularly ate with such people. He didn’t pretend they were saved when they weren’t, but he equally called himself the friend of sinners and spent so much time with them that he was frequently (though wrongly) accused of being a sinner himself, a glutton and a drunkard who hangs around with undesirables. Why, when Jesus did it, do most of our churches never so much as lay eyes on any such people? Why, when the one we claim to follow did it to the point of being falsely accused himself, can most Christians not name even a single person they’d name as a friend with any such background? Might it be that we have failed to welcome and befriend those whom Jesus would call?