We have a lot of church 'business' to do Sunday mornings! While some official business is done, most of the time it is the business of strengthening the fabric of our First Trinity-St. Matthew's community and knitting in the new strands of visitors and friends. It is a joyous time when family that grew up in the church return and we newer people get to meet the adult children and grandchildren about whom we so often hear. It is also great fun to meet the visiting friends of members, as well as those who come without knowing anyone. Last Sunday I got to meet a seminarian from Philadelphia (who knows Taryn Montgomery) and his wife. They were visiting First Trinity 'on assignment' to experience other churches and seemed very appreciative of what they found.
It is good to try to see our community and worship through the eyes of others, non-members and those who have not worshipped here or anywhere else in some time. We all need to do that on a regular basis, to test our assumptions and ensure that we are as welcoming and accessible a community as possible. There are things we do well and things we can do better.
- We started wearing nametags so that members and friends of First Trinity and St. Matthew's could learn to know each other. If everyone wore them it would also a way to identify visitors who did not make nametags. However, many from First Trinity either never wore their nametags or quit wearing them after meeting the St. Matthew's members who came this fall. The problem now is that as more St. Matthew's people join us it it harder for them to put names with our faces.
- Our greeter program is very intentional - the best of the churches to which we have belonged. Actually it is the only one where there is a difference between ushers and greeters, a process for training greeters and procedures for them to follow. The problem is that we don't have enough greeters, so the same ones are used too often. I share responsibility for this as I have been unable to go through training. Once I do I intend to serve as needed. It is hard to correctly identify visitors, especially for someone newer to the congregation. We have grown considerably in the past years, especially with the addition of St. Matthew's. We want and need to make sure every visitor is warmly welcomed and connects with someone from our congregations to the extent feasible. We are fortunate to have pastors with wonderful memories for names and faces, but we all need to take responsibility for reaching out to people we think might be visitors or returning parishioners from one of our two congregations.
- There has been some discussion about the format of our announcements, bulletins and the Voice. Some have strong opinions, others have been silent or pointed us to core principles. While it is important that we be good stewards of our resources and of the environment, there is much evidence to suggest that the easier it is to follow the order of service, the better jobs churches do in attracting new members or regular visitors. Currently the only thing we have to turn to outside of the printed order of service is the lessons on the back cover. Some would say that is too much. While it was only raised in jest, some churches are successfully putting the words and music on flat panel screens and only handing out announcements/prayer requests with contact information to take home. We need to discuss the general issue more thoroughly, but with sensitivity to those who might, for a variety of reasons have difficulty with more than one easy to read booklet to follow.
We have all the elements that it takes to be a welcoming and inclusive community, these are just some areas we need to prayerfully consider how we might improve.
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