Do not hurry yourself in your spirit to become offended. Ecclesiastes 7:9
I’ve been traveling a lot this past summer and this has meant being a visitor in a number of churches. Over the course of visiting many churches I have had great experiences as a guest along with some not-so-great ones. But for the most part my visits to churches, both recently and in the past, have been pleasant, though some are more memorable than others (for good and not-so-good) reasons.
Somewhere along the way I got the idea that it would be fun to do a few meditations on being a good church visitor. That led to another idea: What makes a church one that makes visitors feel welcome. So I offer this as a public service to visitors and churches that want to encourage visitors. Here’s a few ideas…
Churches need to realize that you only have a few minutes to make a first impression, and that usually means that the first impression is not made by the paid staff, it’s made by congregants. It’s made in the parking lot. It’s made by people (if any) at the door or people who people you sit near.
That’s a scary thought to those who want to orchestrate a visitor’s experience at their church. But scarier yet is that a visitor’s impression of the church may be hijacked by some offbeat individual who is friendly, but… unusual (or perhaps not so friendly). Every church seems to have at least one… someone who undoubtedly means well, but lacks social graces or is too full of their own agenda.
Probably my worst incident of this was at a church and my family had found a seat. While I was browsing the bulletin, a very excited (and unfortunately rude) lady came over and told us we were sitting in her seat and demanded that we move. We graciously got up and moved (a good thing to remember when you’re a visitor: just because someone has a problem doesn’t mean it has to become YOUR problem). The pastor’s wife came over as we settled in a different place and smoothed it over as best she could that one of the people that lady sat with required a respirator which needed to be plugged in. The seats we had originally chosen were where the outlet was. Understandable, but could have been handled better.
Compare that to a parking lot attendant at one place we visited. They shared the building with another church which met after this church had met and they used different parking areas for each congregation. (Did I mention that all churches have baffling quirks?) The attendant couldn’t have been more pleasant and even apologetic about asking me to move my car, explaining the reason. The reason didn’t make that much sense to me, but it didn’t have to—it was the spirit which the attendant exhibited that made me happy to go back out into the rain and move my car. (Another good thing to remember when you’re visiting: You don’t have to understand a lot of the reasons they do what they do.)
Do realize that the ambiance of a building is going to make a big impression. I’ve been to storefront churches, small cathedrals, and most everything in between. But what I’m getting at here is what people see. For example, I visited one church that had scads of signs… rules not aimed at visitors, but congregants. From, “By entering this room you agree to…” to “This room is not to be used to engage in…”
On my second visit, I counted the signs I saw. There were over instructive 60 signs in the sanctuary alone. More surprisingly, it didn’t appear that the congregants made any effort to follow the instructions on the signs. But my point is, the impression all those signs gave me was legalism and hyper authority. I know enough about the message of that church to know they would not want to come across that way… but they did.
I’ll talk about positive church-visiting experiences next time.