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My First Sunday at Your Church

Today I visited your church. I looked up the address, called the church office for service times, and got myself and my three children ready on time.

We're new in town, and this is the fourth church we've visited. We step inside, hopeful. Perhaps here I'll find help teaching the Word to our children. Perhaps here we'll grow spiritually. Or maybe we'll receive the same welcome we got at the other churches.

"Good morning! And isn't it a fantastic day!" says the greeter, handing us programs.

"Yes. I'm so glad it's cooling off."

"Are you visiting?" he asks.

"Yes. We just moved here."

"Isn't that grand!" he says, stepping back and looking over our shoulders. "Mr. Charlie! And how are you today?"

Evidently everyone has taken the same greeter class. Again and again someone offers a limp hand saying, "I'm so glad you came," without smiling at all, quickly moving on, job finished. I am itching to ask about the women's Bible study, choir practice, and Sunday school. But then they're gone, chatting with a good friend in the next pew.

After wandering around between Sunday school and church, trying to find a door to the sanctuary that doesn't open into the choir pit, we're late. The sanctuary is nearly full, but there's one empty row—at the very front. So we walk past hundreds of eyes, "new people" on parade.

As we settle the kids, a lady on the end whispers to someone behind her, "I just don't know where John and Steve are going to sit now." I chose the deacons' row. I cringe and turn, searching for another pew to move my family to, but the place is packed and the music is starting.

After the service, I buckle my children into the car, pile the take-home papers and Bibles on the dash, and I start to cry.

I have been an active church member, someone people called for counsel and prayer, someone my pastor called if he needed help with a project. We're in a new town, and I don't mind starting over. And the new church doesn't have to be just like the one back home. But, I think, we should be made to feel welcome.

After our experience, I've come up with four things pastors, Sunday school teachers, and folks in the pews can do to help visitors feel at home.

1. Develop a greeting ministry with the visitor, not the greeter, in mind. I attended a growing church years ago that had such a greeting program. This was not simply shaking hands and handing out programs. Members were expected to seek out and speak to specific visitors for at least three consecutive weeks.

When I began attending, someone came alongside me, escorted me to my children's Sunday school classrooms, and answered my questions about various Bible studies. It provided a sense of honest welcome and of immediate connectedness.

2. Choose hospitality over visitation. After our first visit to "Church A," we received four phone calls, two e-mails, and three letters. Then the pastor invited himself to our house to "get to know us a little better and answer any questions we have about the church."

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