Last year, I was looking for a new church. As I visited different places, I noticed what made me feel welcomed and what made me feel uncomfortable. Here are some of the lessons I learned.
Conversations can make or break a visit
The most helpful thing was any person who was willing to talk to me. It sounds like the most simple thing in the world. But at some churches I visited, I left wondering, “Why won’t anyone talk to me?”
Welcoming teams are great, but welcoming is not exclusively their job. Welcoming is not a system that belongs to your welcoming team. It’s about everyone in the church. Every single person in your church is a welcomer.
It didn’t matter if people were awkward or didn’t know what to say, or that everyone had asked me the same questions. Someone being willing to talk to me was the difference between feeling welcomed and feeling invisible.
I’m an early person. I like to arrive at places early, especially if I’m new. I don’t know what the parking will be like, for example. But at every church that I visited, even if I was only arriving two or three minutes early, I was walking into an empty building.
Usually “the welcomers” were outside, which makes sense. And quite often, congregation members were outside chatting, which meant that the interior of the church was empty. As a visitor, the idea of joining in one of those conversations was very uncomfortable, but if I sat inside there was no one to speak to me.
One of the most awkward times were those few minutes in the service when you are told to turn and speak to someone near you. Most of the time, no one would speak to me.
The next most awkward time was the 30 seconds immediately after the service finished. If no one has spoken to me in that time, I’m not waiting. I’m leaving. Standing around, on my own, waiting to see if someone will talk to me was just too awkward and overwhelming. Even though I’m a Christian and was actively looking for a church community to be part of, I didn’t have it in me to wait any longer.
Prioritise people over process
This is not a criticism of the welcoming systems, but parts of them can be off-putting. Some things that were poorly received included asking for all of my details within the first minute of me showing up, not allowing me to refuse a name tag, and receiving form emails.
A “Great to meet you” email doesn’t feel good when it’s from a member of the ministry team you’ve never spoken to. It’s obvious they’ve got a great system, but people want to connect with people.
Sometimes the email would come from a person who wasn’t even at church on the Sunday I visited. The gospel is relational and personal. Shouldn’t our ministry be relational and personal, too?
Why I chose my church out of the many I visited
The church I’m at now did things differently. Nobody asked me to put my details into a system. Please understand, this is not a criticism of the system! It just shouldn’t be the first thing someone talks to a visitor about.
I stood outside and talked to one of the women who was on welcoming, and then she walked inside with me, kept talking to me and introduced me to someone else. I didn’t have those moments where I wasn’t sure what to do. After the service, someone sitting in front of me immediately turned around and said hello. It was the immediacy of being spoken to and not feeling awkward.
The second time I visited, a couple who I hadn’t met came and introduced themselves saying, “We saw you sitting alone and that’s not right!”. It’s the little things. More often than not, it was a member of the congregation looking to connect.
After visiting, I received a text message from someone I had chatted to. They referenced our conversation from Sunday and that was very impactful.
How can I make a visitor feel welcome?
One way is to be inside the church building a few minutes early. The people inside the building five minutes before church are usually the musicians, ministry staff and visitors. So I’m trying each Sunday to be at church five minutes early and be inside, looking out for those who are visiting and talking to them.
Once church finishes, it can be very awkward for a new person. Now, I think: what can I do to help someone in those first 30 seconds after the service ends? Help them get a hot drink – a lot of churches now have coffee, but you might not know it’s free when you’re visiting.
My prayer is for those considering how they can help welcome people, that they would be brave enough to go and say “Hello” and start a conversation. That’s the most impactful thing.
PRAY
- for those who are aware but feel anxious about how to talk to someone. Pray they would be bold and courageous and that they would know a very simple conversation can be used by God in a really effective way
- Pray visitors would be receptive to that welcome, and patient when it’s not necessarily given. Pray they would persist and not give up in finding a church
- Ultimately we want to pray for people to know and love Jesus, and grow in that. Belonging to the community of God’s people helps with that.
