This starts a series on welcoming people into our church community. We are exploring what is working well, and what we can do to improve what we are doing. If you are part of our community, we would love your comments. If you aren’t part of our church, any comments that can help us would be appreciated too! These posts have been written collaboratively by Brian Donaldson, Neil Duguid and the team…
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We have a small team in our church which has been looking at welcome and hospitality. The team’s role is to inspire all of the body parts to think welcome and hospitality, not to leave it to a number of people on a rota. This series of posts will highlight the different stages we go through as we approach any church community, and raise issues for discussion.
Do we need to look at how we appear and how we integrate new members? If you doubt this, then ask a couple of unchurched people to come along and check out our meeting, and tell you honestly what they think.
One person who did this was Jim Henderson, who hired a thinking atheist (Matt Casper) to join him to visit a number of very varied American churches – from the megachurch down to a house church, and across a spectrum from traditional to contemporary.
Sometimes, Matt is genuinely impressed by what he sees, but sometimes he ends up saying to Jim that he cannot square what he sees with what he understands of Christ’s teaching … especially in the connection between the words he hears and what he sees working out in the life of the church.
Another survey, closer home, was blogged by Simon Varwell in Glasgow in 2006. The end-of-round-one post makes interesting reading.
Some of the churches visited were, once perhaps they had got over their chagrin at being labelled unwelcoming, able to look at themselves constructively through Simon’s posts and able to become more welcoming as a result. That’s what we hope these posts will do too.
If you are part of our community: Do you think we are welcoming? Or does it depend on already knowing someone who will help you to find your way in?
If not: What is your community like in welcoming new people?
Hi Rupert. Glad to see this topic is being looked at.
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
Alastair - you are so right about both points.
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.