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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

What exactly do we mean by "welcoming and friendly"?

Let me be clear as far as I can ascertain all United Reformed Churches are "Welcoming and Friendly". By this I don't mean all congregations claim that. All congregations of all denominations claim that. What I mean is that from my own experience, I can only think of one congregation I have ever heard of as being unfriendly and that was a decade before the report. Also I have been reading Mystery Worshipper reports on Ship of Fools it seems to be a constant theme when talking about a United Reformed congregation.

I have sort of felt that when the growth experts, go on about how a church should be welcoming and friendly at least as far as the URC is concerned, they are preaching to the converted. We have sorted what being welcoming is at least as far as the reports go. People are not being turned away from the United Reformed Congregations in vast droves because the congregations are unwelcoming. It is not just a matter that congregation have to more welcoming and people will flood in. If I could suggest anything to the church people interested in Evangelism it would be that they let go of being a welcoming and friendly congregation and concentrated there efforts elsewhere. Being a "Welcoming and friendly" congregation only matters once you have people coming in. If those people never come in, then it does not matter how you perfect your skills at being "friendly and welcoming" you will not recruit anybody.

However my view is changing. Don't get me wrong, I still believe that all United Reformed Churches are doing their best to be welcoming and friendly and for the most part suceeding. What I no longer believe is that all United Reformed Churches understanding "Welcoming and friendly" to mean the same thing.

So does a church being welcoming and friendly mean:
  1. that others in the congregation recognise you, are mildly interested in what is going on in your life and are ready to chat when you meet
  2. that the congregation provides happenings on a daily basis so that you never need to be lonely but can always go down to the church and chat with somebody
  3. that they keep a note of when you are not in church and check how you are when you are absent for a couple of weeks
  4. that you find it easy to form friendships with people there
  5. that they are ready to help you out even if this is your first visit to the congregation.
  6. that someone greets you at the door and some one talks to you at your first visit.
I guess that the list could go on. The point is not that one of these is correct and the others are wrong but that people will construct being a "welcoming and friendly" congregation to be those of the above that they are good at. Some congregations will even decide that certain of those behaviours are anything but welcoming and friendly.
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