I had an interesting experience a couple of Christmases ago - when I went to another church on Christmas Day. There was no explanation of anything: how long it was going to be, who was doing what, what was going to happen with the children. i was on edge the whole service. And i am generally comfortable in church! We really need to think about what it is like for people who aren’t “churchy” … it is an alien environment anyway … we are looking at how we can make it more welcoming to Christians and not-Christians alike.

Not sure how good my own church is at this, I expect a bit better than average perhaps, but I’m sure we can do better.

I’ll tell you one thing which every church seems to do which must annoy the heaven out of most guests. At some point during the service, the speaker will say something like “if you’re a Christian then raise your hand” or if they are really crazy then “if you’re new here or a guest then raise your hand?”.

Hello? Its really scary to go into a meeting of hundreds of people when you are a guest and I expect most people do not want a metaphorically spotlight shining on them in the middle of the service. By getting all Christians to stand up or raise their hands, you’re basically embarrasing all your guests, many of whom may never return.

In one church I visited this year, they actually asked for all guests to stand up at one point of the service. I just couldn’t believe my ears. There were about 500+ people in the room, and they wanted all the guests and potential non-Christians to stand up and wave? Why would anyone want to do that?

Some general common sense would go a long way in providing hospitality to our guests.

Another one is the offering. How many churches pass the plate row by row, making guests feel awkard unless they give some money? The last thing we want is our guests feeling like they had to pay to receive a cup of lukewarm coffee and sit through a sermon! Simply asking guests not to give would go a long way to avoiding this situation, but the number of churches that don’t bother to say this is still far too high.

I’ll be following this mini-series with interest, as this is a topic close to my own heart