In these days of fear and insecurity it is more problematic for people to summon up the courage to go along to somewhere new especially when they don’t know people.

I’ve pretty much lost my fear of going into strange places and look forward to it as an opportunity to get to know some new people because you never know who you might find and as you must know ad nausuam I approach complete strangers and engage them in conversation, an act that normally is met with a positive reaction.

I suppose people intuit that I’m a community minded bloke and am of an age when I am not a threat.

Tuesday 14th January I went into a particular church because my friend recommended the coffee morning that takes  place every Tuesday at 10:30. as is the case with many churches.  I decided on the spur of the moment to go along and this is a record of my visit as described to the Vicar of that particular church.

Just some words about my attempted visit to the coffee morning yesterday which was advertised on a board to be between 10:30 and 11:45.

I went into the church at around 10:40. There was no one there except a man who had prepared some coffee and who stared at me.

I walked around the church and heard some noises in the vestry but did not want to interfere as it did not seem a public place. As nothing appeared to be going on I left

My general point is that if you advertise a public event which may include those who come for the first time you need someone to actually be there to greet people and know that the event is on etc. I basically left because no one spoke to me. I know the initiative is up to us but we need to see a starting point.

A few hours later I received a courteous email from the vicar.

Thank you for your email, and for your feedback.I am sorry that your visit to the Parish Church of *****  on Tuesday morning wasn’t a positive one.

The gentleman who prepared the coffee can be reticent, and it was the very first time that he was on duty.

More members of the public did join us yesterday morning, they arrived around 11.00am.

I apologize for the lack of welcome and appreciate your constructive feedback.

Getting a ‘welcome’ right can be difficult because some people really value a smile and engaging conversation, others welcome the silence and the opportunity to be alone.

If you were to look in again on a Tuesday morning, I hope you would receive a warm welcome.

With all good wishes and Epiphany blessings

This is pretty much the perfect letter and a speedy response to boot. The recipient does not defend himself but explains the situation and sits back far enough to observe the whole situation whilst contemplating the frailties of the human being and the difficulty in accommodating all types of states of mind through an open door policy.

HOW TO GREET AND WELCOME SOMEONE

In my time, and I should add that I am the son of a vicar, I have watched people come in to churches for decades..

It is worth looking at the etymology of these two words. Welcome is from the Old English wilcuma, and exclamation of kindly greeting, one who’s coming suits another’s will or wish. This is from the word willa ” pleasure, desire, choice”. It includes the Old English cuma ‘guest’ related to the verb to come.

You would not ‘welcome’ somebody into a prison because there is no free will involved. It is an impersonal system.

To greet is from the Old English gretan which is to come into contact with , and touch, take hold of, to handle. Coming into contact with people by shaking hands is the embodiment or being welcomed, not the only one but the most common one. In societies with more restrictions, the shaking of hands would be replaced by a  slight bow or nod or smile.

So the general background of mind and heart, a sign on the building, is welcoming someone. The confirmation of that is the actual greeting, the ‘key in the lock’ so to speak.

I have also been greeted many times in many places. I find that most people are not natural greeters. The best greeters are Caribbeans and people of color in general because they are  intrinsically happy and come from family orientated communities. Advice to greeters – just do it anyway, and do it with your heart.

THE PRACTICALITIES OF GREETING

Some greeters may choose to introduce themselves by first name thought this is not necessary but you should also definitely say something a bit more than welcome to XYZ place, why not say ‘welcome to our community’, ‘welcome to this wonderful building’, ‘welcome to our happy band of people’, something like that. Yes its a bit of an advertisement but why not do it anyway. Be careful with making jokes.

I know the environment is completely obvious to you the greeter but people need to be directed somewhere. For example in this case you could say this is a coffee morning and people tend to turn up at such and such a time and if you would like some coffee the gentleman over there will be pleased to serve you.

Now you might say that all this is completely obvious so why bother. It’s all to do with quantum entanglement, the merging of minds and the giving of confidence.

Going into a new place is disorientating; I remember on Tuesday when I went to have my intervention at the hospital I left the consulting room and could not remember whether to go left or right. I had to ask a nurse.  You are not insulting someone’s  intelligence by telling them what you think is obvious, or asking if you are unsure.

Disorientation does funny things to people

Sometimes visitors are coming to the town for the first time and typically from other countries just seeing what is going on and there is no  differentiation in their minds between the church and for example a museum or historic place. These people have no expectations apart from staring around and asking certain basic questions like, when was this building constructed.

You then have other people who are homeless and in need and looking for a place of refuge from the rough and tumble of Life. They are typically without a stable home background and our needy on many levels.

They may need help on a practical level and this is not always possible to offer so the least the receiving church can do is to have a list of agencies that could support people who are in need even though this may happen very infrequently, when it is needed, it is really needed almost a matter of life and death.

WHAT ABOUT THE TRAUMATIZED NEWCOMER?

Other types of  people are timid newcomers who have perhaps moved to the area because of the death or divorce of their spouse and are feeling particularly vulnerable and all they need is for someone to take notice of them and value them as a human being.

They do not require to be converted but simply loved as I’m sure Jesus did on his many journeys, and oh by the way don’t forget Jesus was not accepted wherever he went. That is why he talked about ‘brushing the dust from your feet’ if you are not welcomed.

Other types of visitor may be hurting inside but being British there’s no way they would express this and will put on a brave face. Everyone should be welcomed and accepted at face value. If they feel they can trust a person or a situation they will open up, if they do not trust the situation that they will not.

Not infrequently a person will be suffering from the passing of a loved one or relative or family or perhaps they have received a diagnosis of cancer. You cannot necessarily tell from their appearance or demeanor because people are so good at covering things up. Very often come all that is required is to say something like ‘how are you’, or ‘how are you feeling today’, and that may be in to open the floodgates.

I would tend to talk to newcomers or potentially vulnerable seeming people away from a group of people who are conversing. The Bible talks about taking people aside privily. If they are new, I would tend to assume that there is something they want to share and something  that they have difficulty in sharing.

Introducing people to each other should be done carefully. People do not want to be pressured into joining a group and will normally find their own way around. I would not introduce a single person to say five people by name but I might introduce them to one person.

As for subject matter I would keep off the topic of asking them if they are a church goer or are a Christian. Unless and until you have their trust, such questions will seem to be intrusive. Apart from giving people the word of God,  it is our presence, our very presence, that should impress people and if it doesn’t then there is something wrong.

I will also give a person time to speak even though what they are saying is not enormously interesting. They probably have a need to tell somebody and who knows you are the first person to be told something important which they might have been afraid of telling someone previously.

THE VALUE OF LISTENING

I have spoken many times before about listening (do a site search on this site on listening) but there is a huge difference between giving that someone your full attention, and listening to them with one ear and keeping an eye on what’s going on with the other. I believe that listening is a real gift and a blessing to both parties

There are those who want to  buttonhole and official and tell their entire life story and the question is, how can you interrupt them without appearing to be rude. There are some people who are so isolated, and so unused to being listened to, that they will repeat the same things several times.

In this case it might be a good thing to tell them that what they’re saying is very interesting and we have a coffee morning each week or a discuss some group each month where you can come along and give people a chance to say what they think. You can say that our people are very experienced in the ways of the world and someone would have something of interest to say to you.

GREETING GROUPS OF PEOPLE

This is more tricky than you might think because you have to figure out who is the leader of the group if any whilst maintaining eye contact with everybody so no one feels excluded, so you have to swing your head around a bit.

Be careful about using the term ”you people” instead, how about the group from Birmingham, you group of enthusiasts, you all who have taken the time to come and see us.

Take care to say we (not I) welcome you, or you are all most welcome but don’t overdo it. I wouldn’t say you’re ‘more than welcome’ because that’s a bit like saying the glass is more than full. The door is either open or closed.

Oh and don’t forget to tell them why they are here. In the case of an historic building you may be dealing with people from another country and they are so disorientated they probably don’t even know what country they’re in never mind what town. So, a little bit of a something life ‘you are here in the church of Saint George which was built 800 years ago and is one of the best preserved judge buildings of its time’.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

It may be a cultural thing but I have noticed that American people or should I say people from America think nothing of barging into a conversation and completely ignoring what is going on in order to make their point. I don’t know why they are so insensitive to do this but I’ve seen this dozens of times. It never seems to change,  so in this case if I were the recipient I would gently and politely ask the person to refrain while I finish my conversation.

Another way of dealing with people who go on and on about something including their life history is to stop them and ask them a question, for example ‘have you talked to anybody about this before?’  If they say yes then you could ask them what the results were and gently help them to realize that they’re not really listening to other people or following their advice.

So the message is – if in doubt ask a question. Treat everyone as your brother or sister.