A Lesson Learned Whilst Church-Hopping

(Marlene Knox recently gave this brief talk in the church on this subject and we asked her to share it with a wider audience.)  

Recently Keith and I enjoyed a 3-month trek north into Queensland as far as Cooktown. Apart from escaping a fair slice of Canberra’s cold weather, we experienced many exciting activities and saw some wonderful sights.

 Most Sundays we found a church to attend. Not all were Baptist churches and, obviously, worship experiences were varied. Some meeting places were large with masses of people and programs, others small, unassuming and faithfully ministering to a handful of souls each Sunday. The quality and length of the services varied a great deal too. In fact the shortest service we attended was of about half hour duration and the longest (not a Baptist Church) was three hours long!!! 

We expected some variety in the services and found it refreshing. What we also found interesting was how each of these churches dealt with its visitors. The genuine warmth of the folk in the congregation (or lack thereof,) seemed to bear no direct relationship to the size of the church, the geographic location or indeed the denomination of the church. We experienced some wonderful fellowship and hospitality on occasions but in some cases, after being acknowledged as visitors and told we were very welcome from the pulpit, we might as well have been invisible after the benediction! 

I am sure most of you have also had similar experiences. It set me thinking about our church’s response to visitors in our services Sunday by Sunday. More importantly, my response to unfamiliar folk standing outside our church each week. 

After all, our church’s response is the sum of your and my responses. After some discussion in a recent Outreach Committee meeting, we agreed, as a church, that we do make an effort to be friendly and outgoing. But what about our individual efforts? 

Our Mission Statement speaks of “Building a vibrant and open community, responsive to God’s love in Christ and committed to serving God and people”. It seemed to me that a good place to start building was where we each examined our own preparedness to touch someone we don’t normally acknowledge with a smile, a “hello”, a genuine welcome and an open friendly attitude. 

You see, for myself, on holidays, the quality of a welcome did not drastically affect me. I didn’t go to a particular church with a special need, nor was I specifically looking for love, friendship and support. I wasn’t even looking for a possible permanent church home. I didn’t have to make the choice to return there or not because we were moving on anyway. I suspect it is different for some folk who enter our church building each week. 

I trust the challenge that presented itself to me for more openness and willingness to reach out to strangers - and those that are not in my normal circle of friends and acquaintances - can become your challenge too. I know that our church will be a lot further along the road to fulfilling its mission statement if we all can go that one step further.