{"id":692,"date":"2006-02-07T06:05:28","date_gmt":"2006-02-07T06:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/welcomed-at-the-table.html"},"modified":"2006-02-07T06:05:28","modified_gmt":"2006-02-07T06:05:28","slug":"welcomed-at-the-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/welcomed-at-the-table.html","title":{"rendered":"Welcomed at the Table?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Not long ago a pastor-friend told me a story. At his church were two known lesbians with whom he had met a few times, and with whom he had developed a pleasant relationship. They liked the church. Then the Lord&#8217;s Supper was scheduled, and they asked him if they were welcomed at the Table. He explained, as sensitively as he could, that they would not be. Shortly thereafter they left the church. <!--more|inline-->The pastor confided to me that he seriously wondered if the church had done the right thing, for he thought all further opportunity to serve them was now over.<br \/>\nWhat I&#8217;m asking in this post, mostly because I&#8217;m wondering what is going on out there, is what your local church&#8217;s &#8220;policy&#8221; or &#8220;practice&#8221; is. I&#8217;d like to avoid us getting here into lengthy debates with one another &#8212; that might come later when I post my own view on this issue, but for now I&#8217;m just wondering what your church does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not long ago a pastor-friend told me a story. At his church were two known lesbians with whom he had met a few times, and with whom he had developed a pleasant relationship. They liked the church. Then the Lord&#8217;s Supper was scheduled, and they asked him if they were welcomed at the Table. He&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Welcomed at the Table? - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/welcomed-at-the-table.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Welcomed at the Table? - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not long ago a pastor-friend told me a story. At his church were two known lesbians with whom he had met a few times, and with whom he had developed a pleasant relationship. They liked the church. Then the Lord&#8217;s Supper was scheduled, and they asked him if they were welcomed at the Table. He&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/welcomed-at-the-table.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-02-07T06:05:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Welcomed at the Table? - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/welcomed-at-the-table.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Welcomed at the Table? - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Not long ago a pastor-friend told me a story. At his church were two known lesbians with whom he had met a few times, and with whom he had developed a pleasant relationship. They liked the church. Then the Lord&#8217;s Supper was scheduled, and they asked him if they were welcomed at the Table. 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