14th June 2026 

All are welcome... aren't they? (1)
Saints, Sufferers, Sinners

During our vision process three years ago, welcome was one of the words that kept on coming up. We are justly proud of the way HTSJ welcomes so many people from so many different backgrounds, not just on Sunday but throughout the week. People who come into church often notice the warmth of the welcome and the love and care which we offer. But, if we dig a bit deeper, we know that welcoming all is a challenge as well as a joy. If we truly want to grow as a church who "welcome all with the love we have received from Jesus" we will need to grapple honestly with the challenge. I'm sure all of us, if we look honestly at ourselves, can think of moments where or people with whom our welcome smiles have worn a bit thin. I confess that mine have!

Bible Counselling UK have a framework that might help us here. Their framework reminds us that all Christians, whatever our backgrounds, age, gifts and needs, are simultaneously saints, sufferers and sinners. 

We are saints. We are bought by the blood of Christ, shed on the cross and reborn in the waters of baptism. We have received the gift of the Holy Spirit and, by the Spirit's power are being transformed day by day, "changed from glory into glory" as the old hymn puts it. All of us are infinitely precious children of God, who bring our own unique gifts to build up the body of Christ in this place. We are saints.

And yet, we are sufferers. We live in a world that remains broken by sin, in the overlap between the old and the new creation. All of us bring different limitations and different brokenness - and none of us fully know the brokenness which another carries. The child who seems to be behaving inappropriately may be doing so because a need (s)he can't articulate isn't being met. The parent who seems disengaged from their child's needs may have been up with that child all night while the rest of us slept. The person who comes across as grumpy may be suffering from chronic pain, or have recently received a devastating diagnosis. We are sufferers.

And, we are also sinners. If we are really honest with ourselves, we know that we don't always bring our best selves to church. Sometimes, we are grumpy and irritable. Sometimes, all of us, whether we are 2 or 92, behave badly. We are sinners.

Saints, sufferers and sinners. The thing is, we don't have a window into the souls of others. Only God knows what is truly going on in the depths of a person's heart. We are called, in a command as profoundly simple as it is profoundly hard, to "love one another".