I love what one of my brothers at Grace recently said, “I never thought of church as being a place to find friendships.” He and his wife started coming in the Fall and have connected and have felt so welcomed. They didn’t visit Grace thinking, “where can we meet friends?”, but they found some great friendships and have loved experiencing belonging!
We have guests every single Sunday morning. God has blessed us with a prime location, and many people visit Grace simply because they drive by the church facility often. As some of you probably know, I strive to create belonging for our guests. I don’t hesitate to talk to newcomers, and I even write down their names to pray for them. I’ve been on the receiving end of great hospitality, and I’ve been on the receiving end of feeling a coldness from people in a worship service, so I know the value and impact of hospitality.
I want to challenge us to get better at hospitality. We are doing well, and have made some strides, but I’d love to see us improve more and more. We do a good job at welcoming people at the front door and in the foyer, but we can grow in welcoming people in the worship center. I want to challenge you to imitate me. For many of you that will be way out of your comfort zone, but for some of you it won’t be much of a stretch. Until the countdown to the start of the service begins, I challenge you to meet people. Learn people’s names, write them down, and pray for them.
I appreciate the 3 guidelines that Rebecca McLaughlin suggested in an article on the Desiring God website.
1. “An alone person in our gathering is an emergency” – No one should ever be sitting alone for very long. It’s likely that this person took great courage to come and join us. Let’s not let this emergency go unattended to.
2. “Friends can wait” – If you see someone new but didn’t get a chance to talk to them. Catch them right after the service before they leave. Your friends can wait. This is especially important for our official greeters, not to get distracted by their friends.
3. “Introduce newcomers to someone else” – I wish I would have learned this one earlier. For some time, I thought, I need to know everyone. But an even bigger win for me is introducing a newcomer to someone else, and then watching a friendship grow!
4. This wasn’t on Rebecca’s list, but let me suggest this as a fourth guideline, “Eat Lunch with someone new”. Bonding over food is wonderful, and while I may have forgotten, many of you can remember the first Sunday you were here and you went out for lunch with the Schanbachers. Everyone has to eat lunch, so why not take that opportunity to go out for fast-food with someone who is new to Grace.
Let’s increase our awareness of the guests that come to worship with us. Let’s get more intentional at “welcoming others, as Christ welcomed us, for the glory of God” (Romans 15:7)
See you Sunday!
Pastor Kyle