On Sunday, May 3, Augsburg welcomed eight new households into our community of faith.

One of the things that almost every person who joins says is how welcome they were made to feel when they first visited. 

Augsburg is a welcoming community, from the greeters at the doors, to the people in the pews, to the intentionality of the pastors to greet every visitor. But for a lot of folks who are seeking a new place to worship, maybe for the first time, or maybe after being hurt by another church, it’s not always easy to just show up at a new church.

These past few years, the people of Augsburg undertook a big effort, involving Sunday school classes, book studies, and lots of conversations that led us to craft a Welcome Statement that was overwhelmingly approved by the congregation at our Annual Meeting in November. This statement is clear in saying that you, “child of God,” are welcome here.

In this scary world, where sometimes even churches are intimidating, it is our Christ-centered duty to remind those seeking faith communities that all that we are doing is rooted in Jesus’ love. This is not a place of condemnation.

Rooted in the Welcome Statement, we’ve taken one more step to help to convey to God’s people that they are welcome here. This past spring, our Social Ministry Team brought forth a recommendation to Council that we complete the Reconciling in Christ (RIC) credential process to become a partner congregation.

This process gives congregations like ours, and throughout the ELCA, a way to reach out to our neighbors and help them know that they can be welcomed and included here. Being an RIC community gives us access to resources that help us connect with neighbors who embrace a variety of gender and sexual identities, neighbors who are different races, and neighbors who are differently abled in mind and body. 

So when someone is looking for an ELCA congregation, they can find on the Reconciling Works Website that Augsburg is a safe and welcoming place for all of God’s people who long to be nourished by God’s Word and Sacramental promises.

At our April meeting, our Council voted 11-1 to complete the application to the Reconciling Works organization to be a Reconciling in Christ Community. The pastors submitted that application and it was quickly approved!

While this is a moment of joy for us to celebrate that our neighbors might now know more clearly that they belong here, this is also an invitation for us to be more intentional about creating spaces and opportunities for all who worship, serve, and grow in faith with us.

One question that we have heard throughout the process is,

“OK,  now that we have this credential, what has to change?” The answer is nothing has to change. We were a welcoming and inclusive congregation before the Council elected to finish this process and we will continue to be. RIC does not mandate that we have to change how we worship, our liturgies, or our time-tested practices. 

Rather, what being RIC does invite us to do is to 

recognize that in the beauty of our worship, in the depth of our learning opportunities, in the ways we gather in fellowship, and in all of those spaces that we work together to make sure that folks who might not have felt access or invitation to a faith community do feel welcome and know they are safe here.

In receiving this RIC credential, we join ELCA congregations

throughout the synod who share in this partnership. We are the first here in Winston-Salem, but look to our neighbors from Raleigh, Asheville, Charlotte, and places in between to help us learn and grow in how we can continue to thrive as a welcoming community for all God’s people. 

For more information, please contact one of the pastors. For more information about the Reconciling Works organization, visit https://www.reconcilingworks.org/.