After a couple minutes of this happy chit-chat someone makes a joke that y’all had better get into the worship service before Pastor Jenkins starts into his altar call. You enter the worship service, people are engaged but they happily scoot over and welcome you into their amiable little circle.
The service itself was quality. The time of worship through song was encouraging. You might even use a words like vibrant to describe it. The congregation seemed to come alive through song. And the preaching was top-shelf. God’s Word was faithfully preached and relevant application was made.
The sermon ends and you stick around for a bit. This time it’s more than the PBJ-faced that give you a greeting. You are invited to two small groups, given a phone number, and someone asks if you have any lunch plans. Truthfully, it feels a little overwhelming—but you are most definitely welcomed.
The Point
After reading about those two services, I know what you’re thinking. I really stacked the cards against that first service. What if your church does a greeting time AND is warm and refreshing?
That’s certainly better. But that leaves me one question. Why bother with the formal time? If you already do it well—and you are fulfilling that command of holy kissing through donut-stuffing and glad chuckling—then isn’t it redundant?
There are really only two paths here. Either you do “fellowship” and “welcoming” well or you don’t. If you do it well, then your time of greeting isn’t necessary. If you do it poorly, then your time of welcoming is only shining a spotlight on how glaringly horrible you are at making others feel welcome.
The reality is that most churches are somewhere in the middle. What will make you better, though? Will that time of faux-fellowship cause you to be better outside of that five minutes? I’d argue that such a thing will stunt your growth in that area. But if nothing is there…well, you’re going to feel the awkwardness and holy travesty of a guest not welcomed. That’ll get you out of your seat and over to shake a hand.
Conclusion
I can say with some measure of confidence that I pastor a church that is warm and friendly. Almost every visitor we’ve had has said that they felt welcomed and accepted. It’s very rare for someone to feel us to be cold. (Though, I think we’ve had some off Sundays for sure).
This isn’t because of me. I’m awkward and introverted. But our people are great at this. And I would argue that we’ve only gotten better at this since we cut out the formal time of greeting.
This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.
