Loading ...Friendliness and Congregational Growth
I walked into the Carmax to buy a new family minivan. A nice young salesman greeted me at the door to provide help and service. His purpose was to answer questions, direct me to the cars that I would be interested in, and to make me feel comfortable. You walk in most business locations and there is someone to greet you. There is a friendly smile and a desire to help. Have you walked into a few of our church buildings recently. I remember a while back I was visiting with a congregation. Usually I shake hands and force people to greet me. But this day, I wanted to understand the perspective of a introverted individual. I made a rule to talk as much as people would talk to me. I went into the building and sat down. No one greeted me in this 250 congregation. Finally I was spoken to, with a “can you move over, we sit on this pew.” No hello, no are you visiting, just get over. After this, I heard a voice behind me declare “what are we going to do now, he is sitting in our pew.” That really made me feel welcomed. A nice loud enough hint not to sit there again. Companies do everything possible to make its customers feel welcomed in a store. This is why there is a nice older man or woman as a walmart greeter. But sometimes in the church we will not even get up from a pew to walk over to a guest for the services. We will walk right by someone without even making eye contact. A perfect stranger will sit behind us before services begins and we will not turn around to make some conversation. Sometimes congregations have a period of greeting before the worship begins. This always makes friendliness seem so forced. Ok, I will talk to you, if I must. Mostly, you can tell the level of desire that a congregation has to grow on the level of friendliness the congregation shows. When the worldly business is friendlier than the church, there is a serious problem. The level of friendliness will seriously determine the level of growth in a church.
Related posts:
- Congregational Development at Castle Rock
- The Test of Faithfulness and Congregational Participation
- Congregational Control
- Review of “Managing Congregational Conflict”
- Review of “Leading Congregational Change”
About The Author
Matthew, in regards to your closing sentence, “The level of friendliness will seriously determine the level of growth in a church”, I couldn’t agree more. I honestly believe that I am a Christian today because of a lack of friendliness in my former belief and the presence of it in my church. I was raised in Christian Science. When I first moved to New Jersey, I went to one of their churches in my area. I was 25, and I even wore my suit that day. Nobody said anything to me at all. Nothing. The person nearest in age to me appeared to be in her 40’s. The ushers ignored me. I sat in the back, and after service stormed out angry. I vowed never to return.
Contrast that to the church we still worship at today. We were invited to come by a woman my wife worked with. We walked in the door, and the minister immediately approached us, introduced himself, and warmly welcomed us. Everybody we cross paths with noticed we were new and came up to greet us and introduce themselves. The church was so warm and friendly we coulnd’t not go back (double negative, but it makes my point.) As we continued to return, I began reading the Bible and listening to the teachings in the sermons and Bible classes, and I came to believe the Gospel and be baptized. I could still be stuck in Christian Science if somebody had been nice to me in that one church.
Being friendly to visitors is a vital part of church life. I think a church that isn’t welcoming doesn’t deserve to grow.
Excellent post. I’ll be linking to you on this one. It has always been my experience that this is paramount when it comes to creating an atmosphere of growth.
Eric, I am so thankful that the congregation was warm and friendly. We are blessed because of that congregation. Dale, I would be honored by you linking to this post. Thank you.
i can’t help but think, too, that this is a natural result of the extreme individualism of the West.
I could not agree with your post more. Friendliness of any congregation will imact the seekers desire to be a part of that church. Mcuh of the more recent literature on church growth in a postmodern culture suggests that people will be won to the community before they are won to Christ. In other words, the path to discipleship for a seeker will first take need to offer a community that the seeker enjoys and feels welcomed to be a part of. This cannot happen un an unfriendly and uninviting congregation (even if that is unintentional).
I am a big advocate of small groups as the entry point into the Christian community. Invite the seeker to a small group where there is 6-12 other Christians gathering for prayer, fellowship, Bible study, etc… and develop a relationship (friendship) with that seeker to the point that he/she wants to be a part of that small group (which then breeds the opportunity to teach him/her about Jesus). Then when that person is invited to the larger Sunday morning worship/assembly, they will already have some familiar faces they know.
The larger the average Sunday assembly, the more needed this is. However, for most Churches of Christ, the entry point into the church (the seekers first meeting with a particular local Christian community) is the Sunday morning worship assembly. Developing small groups and making the change so that a seeker’s first introduction to that particular congregation is one of several small groups is no easy task. In some congregations, trying to make that change is almost impossible and would be so disruptive (unfortunately) that it just may not be worth the effort. It seems that the difficulty with making such monumental changes in the way a church ‘works’ increases as the total size of the congregation increases. If a church cannot make such a change, it DOES NOT mean that members cannot learn to be more friendly, welcoming, and seeker-sensitive to visitors during the Sunday morning assembly.
Rex
My first thought after reading this is: they’ll know we are Christians by our LOVE.
He wanted to be nice to you because if you bought the car he got a nice commission. It’s funny that you would want to go somewhere and have someone be “Fake Nice” to you. The carmax guys was only nice because if he was nice he would get something out of it. Same as I was only Nice to people so they would buy Cable, Phone and Internet at Eastlink and we would make our sales goals and I would get my bonus. Would you rather have gone to that Church and had the people behind you be nice to you and not meant it? I would have had them be mad that I was sitting in there seat. At least that was real and not a fake smile and hating you inside for sitting in their seat. Just think next time if you didn’t know they were upset you were in their seat again, you would have sat in it again. Next time you go there you will know that is their seat and they will be happy that you had the respect not to sit in it again. I am sure that will make them much more happy and nice to you.
“His purpose was to answer questions, direct me to the cars that I would be interested in, and to make me feel comfortable.”
I just wanted to add that his purpose was to sell you a car. Everything you have listed there is just a prerequisite to that.
One is certainly aware that the car salesman is desiring to sell a car to you. This is a known, there is a certain level of self-serving friendliness, but since I was going to buy a car anyway, I might as well buy one from a salesman who was nice instead of rude or unhelpful. Also, hopefully most congregations are deeper and more sincere than faking niceness for membership. But if I wanted to be part of a congregation, at first I want a little niceness, maybe after a while, the couple could inform me that this was their preferred pew but probably the first visit is not the time to do this. I am thankful that you prefer people to not sugarcoat stuff, but most people the direct route is considered a rude route.
Alan is exactly right!
Brent does bring up something important to remember. In the postmodern/post-Christian culture we live in, any friendship or love that is not authentically genuine will be sniffed out and rejected. People want to know they mean much more than just an evangelism prospect or number for the scorecard (a.k.a., membership role).
The question is can we love people as God loves people? That is, just as Jesus loved people, can we love people for who they are no matter what they are and even if they do not reciprocate that love?
What a challenge!
Rex
Matthew,
Your post reminded me of a time when my wife and I visited a church in another state. We looked in a phone book and found an ad for a church with the slogan “Where no one stands alone.” Well…we stood alone for about an hour and a half. The church had a lofty goal, but it did not come close to reaching it on that Sunday morning.
This is one of the primary reasons we are at our current church. I have never in my life felt so welcomed from the moment I walked in. At first, it seemed like they had just had a sermon on greeting visitors, but after visiting a few times, I saw this was just the culture they had developed.
My parents once left a church when I was a kid because they got there 30 minutes early and stayed 20 minutes after and nobody even came over to say hello.
It is amazing how the level of friendliness will affect us. A lot of times we love or dislike a congregation on this basis. It is important stuff.
Like you, my husband usually will greet people when visiting just as if he were at home, but several times I have asked him to remain quiet and see how we are treated. Sometimes we have been warmly welcomed, but too many times we have been ignored and allowed to come and go with no interaction at all. This has made us even more eager to seek out visitors and to get acquainted with them, not just say “hello, glad you came.”