Our church in North Carolina regularly receives copies of The Christian Chronicle, and the cover of one of the most recent issues caught my eye. There was a picture of a church meeting, taken from an outsider perspective (through the window of the front entrance). Two large signs were taped to the glass of the window; one read "NO...CANDY OR DRINKS PAST THIS POINT...Thanks!" and the other "TIP TOE TIP TOE IN GOD'S HOUSE".
Now, I'm not looking to pick on a specific church since I have met at (worshipped with and worked for) churches with a similar message (if not the specific sign). My question for all of us is this...where was the WELCOME sign? I understand having some rules about food and such, but do we want that to be an outsider's first (and maybe last) interaction with us? If someone visits my house I may ask them to take off muddy shoes or not to sit on the arm of the couch, but it isn't the first thing I say to them. Hopefully they pass through my door with a hearty "Welcome" and feel it is sincere.
My follow up question would be this; are we doing enough to make our guests feel welcome? I'm not even talking about seeker services or a complete overhall of worship styles, I'm talking about making them feel welcome to visit and participate with us in what we do. Does the guy walking in off the street feel welcome?
My fear is that all signs point to no.
4 comments:
One of my biggest fears is that we portray a "members only" persona to the outside world. Should we not make a visitor feel more than welcome, should we not make them feel at home? Carpet can be cleaned, what is more important than a soul finding Jesus? Good questions you ask, I hope we All keep looking for the answers.
The building sometimes gets put in front of the mission because it is so visibly tangable and practical. Church of Christers are very practical people historically. We need to put up a sign that "Sins are washed away by Jesus. Stains on the carpet are left to us...please be careful!"
I understand what you're saying, but it still has this undercurrent of distrust for outsiders. Like we know to try to avoid spilling coffee, but an unchurched person wouldn't. I wouldn't put a sign like that up in my house and I'm not sure why I would in a church building.
I guess I'm worried that messiness of humanity leads us to try and keep humanity out. We want to offer lofty things like forgiveness of sins, but not everyday things like a place to sit down and a cup of cold water. Or we offer those things, but only in places where it's OK to be messy.
I heard a great sermon two weeks ago where the preacher talked about his annoyance at finding out his country club was giving away memberships at half price. His concern was that the pool would get too full, it would be harder to get a tee time, etc. I worry that we feel the same way with church. We want all kinds of people to come to Jesus, but only certain kinds of people to come to our church.
You're right of course. Do we really need signs at all? I wish every church could have a lobby that looked like a living room...a cazy lived in living room!
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