Today I spent two and a half hours walking around my neighbourhood with two dutch men and dutch baby boy. We spoke of many things. They are both amazing people on amazing adventures with cool families. When we returned from our walks i sat with one of the men and his wife and we were talking about the way we label different things and he said that when you are welcomed into a place in dutch it can sound like “i hate you, you a welcome” But the meaning of it is almost ‘you are called welcome’

Labelled as welcome. not just you are welcome for this time or this place, you are actually labelled as welcome.

I like that. I like that that echos the kingdom of God. Jesus has made us not just welcome for the moment we confess, or the moment we worship or the moment we are “good”, he labels us welcome and fully adopted to our core.

We are welcomed by the father, named welcome by the son and made welcome by the spirit.

The dutch taught me that.

One of them also spoke of how each culture has unique things to speak of God. We spoke of labelling and how each language can also teach us things of God because of our unique perspectives.

God champions diversity. and so can we.