Dear Church Family,
Because of COVID and other things God is doing in our city, we have new people visiting and considering joining our congregation. Here are the general comments I hear from them.
- I love the worship service
- I think this is the church God is leading me to.
- I just wish the people here would talk to me.
Ouch!. That is a little hard for me to accept about us but sadly it is true. I have observed it myself.
Now if you are thinking, "Huh. We need to do a better job at this. I wonder who is failing here." It is probably you. You see, we don't have people designated as greeters like other churches because I want to avoid as much hypocrisy as possible. I don't want to give people the impression we are friendly if we indeed are not.
Now I can see we are very friendly to the people we know. There are big hellos and smiles and hugs and laughter and "good to see ya's" to our friends. But nothing for the stranger. That can actually make it worse for a visitor. It intensifies the feeling of being an outsider. This can not stand as it is now. We need to clean this up in His House Immediately.
What if Jesus sends an angel in disguise to see if someone will say hello? I wouldn't want to be in the church that got a bad report from that Angel. I wonder if that is how the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelations got started.
So, here is what I intend to implement to try to fix it.
- Every member of our church is hereby promoted to the office of official Vista Hills Greeter.
- Training.
- On Sunday, look around the sanctuary to see if there is someone there you don't know.
- Walk up to just outside six feet of that person with a smile and say, "Hi. My name is _________. What is your name? Well, it is nice to meet you Bob. Welcome to Vista Hills. Would you like to sit with us?
- They probably won't sit with you but at least they will have been asked.
- Inspection- I will be coming to you to ask you to introduce me to any people I don't recognize. I want to make absolutely sure I get to meet any angel God sends to our worship service. Please be ready with their name to say something like, "Bob this is our pastor. He wanted to meet you."
Let's all get a mop and clean this up, please. We need to be in truth a place that is welcoming to strangers. We are not that place at this moment. Again, if you think I am talking to someone else I am not. You are the one I have in mind. And I remain, as always,
Your Servant
Randy