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HOW DO YOU RATE OUR CHURCH IN TERMS OF ITS WELCOMING ATMOSPHERE AND HOSPITALITY?
Did you know that hospitality is a major tenet of the Christian faith? In Paul’s letter to the Romans, we learn the importance and role of being hospitable when Paul says, “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor… be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord… persevere in prayer… extend hospitality.”
Earlier this year, the Session approved the formation of the Welcoming Committee, whose goal is to:
♦ Engender a greater sense of community through more effective
communication and warmth,
♦ Ensure that through our programs, buildings, and worship experience, we extend Christian hospitality and love to all, and
♦ Enhance the image of our church as a new desirable church home for
visitors.
We will be working with many other committees and groups within the
church to provide a more welcoming spirit and environment. The Committee hopes to evaluate many aspects of our church such as how we greet each other on Sunday mornings and the effect of our various church signs on the congregation, visitors and the town of Morristown itself.
The members of the committee currently include: Charlie Becht, Charlotte Buerhaus, Noel Ebrahim, Barbara King, Ginny Pierson, and Vicky Willson.
If you have any ideas or suggestions on how we can make our church more welcoming and inviting to visitors or to our current membership, please feel free to contact any of us to discuss your ideas. We eagerly await your thoughts!
OUR WELCOMING CHURCH II
The significance of a welcoming atmosphere and manner of being of our congregation and their church in all its appearances and atmosphere is emphasized by our Presbytery and adopted by our Session.
Although this may seem to some of us as an emphasis on the obvious, some thought on aspects of the issue is worth the effort.
Although we certainly are a friendly bunch do we really look out for a new face and try to demonstrate our pleasure at seeing our visitors for the first time? Our mission is to make us even better at being a church that new folks see as welcoming.
It is in these regards that, we ask you all, have you demonstrated a real interest in developing conversation with new folks that you meet, making use of good conversation basics such as bringing out the individual s interest, present or former work situations, present residence and where they came from recently, their family and aspects of it they are proud of and so forth.?
It is a very useful exercise to put yourself in the place of a visitor as you circulate and converse with your friends and try and establish just what that person is experiencing. Questions relating to this subject of new inquirers get mixed results. It is apparent that their feeling of being welcomed depended on just who they happened to meet. This would indicate of course that there are some of our folks who are trying and all we need is to get the effort more generally recognized as being so very important. . ..
Our church is working very hard at bringing in new folks. We know that once they hear David’s messages and experience the reality of the love and security that we offer they will stay.
