Grow Your Church in Just Five Minutes!
Sound like a gimmick? Is it too much to expect to grow a congregation in five minutes? Sure it is. But there is an underlying principle here that can help any congregation be more welcoming to newcomers.
One key issue is that those of us involved in a church will feel that we are a warm, loving place to visit. But as we often only see people with whom we worship when we are at church, we spend our time chatting with them. Teaching the people in your congregation how to go about welcoming someone can give people the confidence to speak up to someone they don’t know.
This is not a minor issue. The New Testament teaches hospitality as a major mark of a Christian community. The Greek word for hospitality is philoxenos, which literally means “love of stranger.” Even if the person arrived at your church as an infant, each person in the pews was once a stranger in your congregation. You would not be the close-knit community you are without having welcomed strangers. But in time, it becomes easier and easier to trust that someone else will speak to the new person. This can lead to a congregation becoming a friendly church where regulars are concerned, but a tough nut to crack for the newcomer.
The best way to learn this lesson anew is to ask vestry, welcome committee or other long-term committed members to visit a church in town of another denomination. Just going and experiencing the welcome elsewhere is as instructive as anything you can teach. Have them come back and share with the vestry or welcome committee what they learned. You may also ask a friend to anonymously test-drive your congregation’s welcome by attending and reporting back what it was like to enter your church as a newcomer.
You may also want to run the brief article below in your church’s newsletter. Also include teaching on this five-minute rule in your new member classes. This is not a gimmick to grow you church. It is a way to teach a congregation anew how to live into the Gospel value of hospitality.
Note: This email is the first in a series of every Monday emails Bishop Benhase asked me to write to share insights into conregational development. The emails are archived online together with other related information at loosecanon.georgiaepiscopal.org. The title honors that a canon (among other church uses of the term) is an assistant to a Bishop, and our Bishop has turned me loose to do what I know how to do to form persons for ministry, discern the right fit between clergy and congregations and to assist in the growth (discipleship as well as numeric growth) of our Diocese.
Frank+
Canon for Congregational Ministries, Diocese of Georgia
Sample newsletter article:
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Some practical suggestions may help you better understand how you can assist [Name of Congregation] in welcoming newcomers. I suggest that persons who consider us their church practice the five-minute rule. Hang around the church for five minutes after the service, either in the sanctuary, narthex or coffee area.
If you see someone you don’t recognize go up and say something like, “Hi I’m _____, I don’t think we have met before.” This won’t offend neither a fellow church-goer you have yet to meet or a visitor. Then take the time to get to know the person.
If in those five minutes you don’t find someone new to greet, talk to those you already know or head on to whatever you have to do next. However, if you make a connection, stay and talk as long as it takes to get to know the person. If he or she has questions you can’t answer, introduce them to someone who can. In future weeks check to see if newcomers you have welcomed in the past are around, search them out and catch up on how they are doing.
Remember that you were once a visitor looking to meet others. Reach out to newcomers in love; welcoming them as you wished someone had welcomed you.
We want to neither ignore newcomers, nor mob them with attention. If someone else is already speaking to a new person or family, it is probably best not to jump in. We can also be unhospitable by overwhelming visitors.
Hospitality will fail if it is a gimmick to grow our church, with no genuine concern for others. We take time to welcome the stranger because offering hospitality is part of who we are to be as Christians. In the process we meet some interesting people.
Cartoon courtesy Dave Walker, The Cartoon Church.
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