“Greet one another with a holy kiss…” –2 Corinthians 13:12
That encouragement from 2 Corinthians is now obeyed in the form of “Stand and greet one another…” And we fulfill the obligations of Holy Writ in about 2-3 minutes at the beginning of our Sunday morning worship.
Well, we don’t. At Calvary we don’t have this formal greeting time. When I first came it was still there but we gave it the axe a few months even before COVID. There are a few strategic reasons for this.
What Do Visitors Say?
Many churches have this allotted time for the sake of visitors. After all, we don’t want to risk someone walking through our doors and not be greeted with a friendly face. What better way to assure this happens than to have a 3-5 minute time during the service to do just that.
But it doesn’t work. In fact, church health guru, Thom Rainer, found that almost 90% of guests were uncomfortable by the practice. (Source) It might be one of the reasons a visitor doesn’t come back to your church.
A Tale of Two Churches
You roll into the Holiness Tabernacle of Good Will and Sanctimonious Saints a few minutes late. Thankfully, they still have a door greeter who seems only mildly perturbed by your tardiness. He points you to the sanctuary where you’re met by a brood of blue-haired Betty’s. They begrudgingly inch over and “welcome” you among their huddle.
It feels icy-cold around you but things warm up a bit when the congregation moves into joyful singing of their weekly reminders of what ol’ time religion ought to look like. After the song, Reverend Jenkins stands behind the pulpit, welcomes everyone and then encourages the greeting of those around you.
Hugs are shared. Stares turn into cackles and the cabal of blue-hairs crack a mile-wide smile. With the gumption of a young boy aggressively trying to win a prize at the carnival, their ring leader is suddenly concerned with you’re feeling welcome. Just as you are beginning to believe the façade, the song leader calls everyone out of fellowship and into the worship of the Almighty.
The service itself was quality. The time of worship through song was encouraging. You might even use a words like vibrant to describe it. The congregation seemed to come alive through song. And the preaching was top-shelf. God’s Word was faithfully preached and relevant application was made.
As the time of invitation wraps up and the sermon comes to a close, you stick around for awhile. Nobody come to say hi…well, there was that one little boy with peanut-butter and jelly remnants on his face who gave you a shy wave…but other than that, nothing. You slip out the door knowing you’ll never be back.
Next Sunday you roll into The First Church of Holy Awkwardness about 10 minutes late. Well, whatever late means to these people. Worship already started but there are enough people in the foyer that you could create a quorum for a Baptist business meeting. But its not stale business these people are engaged in, but warm fellowship.
They call you over to their group with genuine smiles and warmth. They are interested in you, your family, your career, but more importantly your walk with Jesus. You’ve been here 5 minutes but it already feels a bit like home.
After a couple minutes of this happy chit-chat someone makes a joke that y’all had better get into the worship service before Pastor Jenkins starts into his altar call. You enter the worship service, people are engaged but they happily scoot over and welcome you into their amiable little circle.
The service itself was quality. The time of worship through song was encouraging. You might even use a words like vibrant to describe it. The congregation seemed to come alive through song. And the preaching was top-shelf. God’s Word was faithfully preached and relevant application was made.
The sermon ends and you stick around for a bit. This time it’s more than the PBJ-faced that give you a greeting. You are invited to two small-groups, given a phone number, and someone asks if you have any lunch plans. Truthfully, it feels a little overwhelming—but you are most definitely welcomed.
The Point
After reading about those two-services, I know what you’re thinking. I really stacked the cards against that first service. What if your church does a greeting time AND is warm and refreshing?
That’s certainly better. But that leaves me one question. Why bother with the formal time? If you already do it well—and you are fulfilling that command of holy-kissing through donut-stuffing and glad chuckling—then isn’t it redundant?
There are really only two paths here. Either you do “fellowship” and “welcoming” well or you don’t. If you do it well, then your time of greeting isn’t necessary. If you do it poorly, then your time of welcoming is only shining a spotlight on how glaringly horrible you are at making others feel welcome.
The reality is that most churches are somewhere in the middle. What will make you better, though? Will that time of faux-fellowship cause you to be better outside of that 5 minutes? I’d argue that such a thing will stunt your growth in that area. But if nothing is there…well, you’re going to feel the awkwardness and holy travesty of a guest not welcomed. That’ll get you out of your seat and over to shake a hand.
Conclusion
I can say with some measure of confidence that I pastor a church that is warm and friendly. Almost every visitor we’ve had has said that they felt welcomed and accepted. It’s very rare for someone to feel us to be cold. (Though, I think we’ve had some off Sunday’s for sure).
This isn’t because of me. I’m awkward and introverted. But our people are great at this. And I would argue that we’ve only gotten better at this since we cut out the formal time of greeting.
