Last weekend (July 9) we were out of town and took a chance to visit your church. We were in the area, looked up your website and were impressed with what we saw, so plugged the address into Google Maps and made our way there. I'm not coming back. Here's why.
How hard is it to talk to visitors!
Apparently, at your church it is nearly impossible. We
arrived at 9.55am, and made our way into the building. The seats were mostly
empty so we felt easy just sitting somewhere we felt comfortable. I reckon it
was pretty obvious that we were not usually in your church – and two others who
walked in before us – but no one deemed us worthy of talking to. Someone opened
the door for us so we could walk in, and just walked away!! Seriously!
At the end of the service, one of the older ladies did come
to speak with my wife. Thank you for taking the time to say hello. It’s a shame
two of your friends decided they couldn’t wait for that conversation to come to
a happy conclusion before making it clear they ‘needed’ to talk to you.
You described yourself as a church connecting with your
community. I hope you are, because it seems you can’t connect with people who
come into your building.
I want to worship Jesus with others, but . . .
We arrived five minutes before the advertised starting time.
The fact that there were so many empty seats was a bit of a surprise, but many
churches have more empty seats than used ones. Over the next twenty minutes, I
reckon we watched about two-thirds of your congregation arrive. Can I assume
from this that people come, but they’re not actually interested? That’s how it
feels to me.
I know that you have a number of families with young children
in the congregation, and I remember the struggle of getting children ready on a
Sunday morning. But, if you have that many people coming late, you might want
to ask why. I know that families will move heaven and earth to get their children
to the basketball stadium on time for their child to start the game, so why is
it ok to just stroll in 10 minutes after the worship service begins?
Music
I’m always pleased when churches are learning new songs. There
were a couple of songs that were completely new to me, and they were difficult to
pick up. That’s ok. If your church community know these songs and can sing them
well, all good.
But what really distracts me is a music team that need to be
told when to come up. Don’t they know when the next song is going to be sung?
If they don’t know, why don’t they know? And watching the music team slowly
meander up to their instruments infuriates me, and suggests they aren’t really
interested. That probably isn’t true, but it looks that way.
The sermon was . . .
The sermon was excellent. I was encouraged to look to Jesus.
I was challenged at my own sinfulness. If I was only interested in this part of
worship, I would happily roll in at 10.30am and leave during the final song.
But I believe that worship is a community experience.
Finally
I am saddened by the experience for two reasons. One, as I’ve
already suggested, I believe that worship is a community experience, and we
were excluded from the community. Before anyone tells me that I should be the
one to step out and talk with people, let me answer you. Come to the church I
belong to and you will see me, and others, step out and talk with people. But
on Sunday, I came to your house – and you did not welcome me.
The second reason I am saddened is that I was visiting some
family over that weekend who are dealing with some big life issues. I would
like to have been able to say to them that we have found a church that would be
good for them to attend. We didn’t.
I write this in the hope that we might all do better. Let’s
point to Jesus in all we do and not just leave it to the preacher.
