As a visitor, I thought of it as a good way to get a first impression of the spirit of the church body.
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Meet & Greet
- Thread starter Salty
- Start date
As a visitor, I thought of it as a good way to get a first impression of the spirit of the church body.
Compare the "friendliness" of the "official greeting" time to the greetings you receive after the service is over.
I've been to a few churches like that.
I'm not a huge fan of the meet-n-greet. I'm a shy and reserved person by nature, and I feel like I'm forced to interact with the people. Let me decide when and how to say hello and interact with the people of the church I'm visiting / attending.
That is why, in our church, it is voluntary. We ask for a show of hands of first time visitors. If a person chooses not to raise his hand he is not "outed" from the pulpit or by the ushers. He is allowed to sit in anonymity.
I am sorry but I can't recognize every one of our 900+ members by sight. Perhaps your memory is better than mine.
I went to our home church a couple of months ago when it was requested that all of the pastors be there including the two other campus pastors and I had someone ask me if I was new.
We have our names on the bulletins but not our faces. I just told them I went to another campus. I would regard visiting a new church in the same way I would visit a car lot while car shopping. I would prefer anonymity with an opportunity to check things out before getting friendly with the salesman. Frankly it's a turnoff to have everyone coming up to you being "friendly." I prefer watching you for awhile before getting to know you. If I want to interact with you I will make the first move.
So there are some folks who want everyone at church to ignore them until they say so. Rejecting the friendly gestures of folks at church is a sign of some issues that most likely need to be dealt with with a counselor.
Internet Theologian
Well-Known Member
That's their right, but you have a problem with them. Who are you to decide they will be bothered when you say so? You need to respect others wishes and desires.
Some people just don't want to be confronted and wish to worship unmolested. Some don't want to be involved in a corporate exchange pushed on them at the worship service. This is not to say they will reject someone personally approaching them without being sicked on them by someone in the pulpit at a set time. That you say these need counselling due to the fact they don't like your approach is absurd.
I understand wanting to go under the radar and I'd definitely be uncomfortable with raising my hand during announcement time but would feel funny not doing it because I would feel it was obvious that I was a visitor. I prefer a few people coming up and saying hello and then after the service, being able to speak to someone at a welcome center/visitor's center/hospitality area. That to me is much less threatening. At our home church, which is larger, we invite guests to join us in our Hospitality Suite where they can meet with a pastor or other staff member/deacon/leader and ask questions and get further info. They can also just go to the Welcome Center or Special Events Center to get some basic info as well.
Internet Theologian
Well-Known Member
That would definitely make people feel more comfortable.
So church is about the right of the people? Isn't that what "Laodicea" means "the rights of the people?" Or justice of the people? Wasn't that the church that Christ wanted to spew out of
His mouth?
Look, there are people who are offended if no one talks to them and there are those who are offended if someone does. These two positions are diametrically opposed and the church cannot in any form meet the desires of both. It has to be one or the other.
Being that this is a given we then need to figure out what is best. The latter of the two are a smaller portion of people who have some issues. It is a shame that people are offended by people wanting to be friendly to them. As in introvert I can tell you it has nothing to do with being shy.
Churches should be friendly in every way they can. People moving around and greeting each other must be done some time in a church gathering whether it is before the service, during the service, or afterwards. To have someone come in and never approach them or greet them ever is unfathomable. Neither can anyone read the minds of those who have issues.
hey guess what. if you are going to go out in public someone might actually say "Hello!" If that is too much for you then there are counselors to deal with that. It is not healthy.
Being that this is a given we then need to figure out what is best. The latter of the two are a smaller portion of people who have some issues. It is a shame that people are offended by people wanting to be friendly to them. As in introvert I can tell you it has nothing to do with being shy.
Churches should be friendly in every way they can. People moving around and greeting each other must be done some time in a church gathering whether it is before the service, during the service, or afterwards. To have someone come in and never approach them or greet them ever is unfathomable. Neither can anyone read the minds of those who have issues.
hey guess what. if you are going to go out in public someone might actually say "Hello!" If that is too much for you then there are counselors to deal with that. It is not healthy.
The church at Laodicea was a problem because they were ineffective. Laodicea was the name of the town where the church was. It was not a reflection of the people in the church.
Internet Theologian
Well-Known Member
So Christ wanted to spew them out His mouth because they didn't want to be corporately greeted, raise their hand to acknowledge they're visiting?
You're misusing a passage to say people have no right to not be molested corporately, and therefore you want to reserve the right to be in their face? Let's see, you probably think it's your right to offend others, correct? lol...unreal...
You never fail to amaze with your abuse and misuse of Scriptures.
But look at how they were acting, like warm, neither cold nor hot. They talked about themselves pridefully. They said we are rich, they had no need for God. Proud and self-righteous and so that in their minds was their right. Isn't that what we see in many churches today?
No he wanted to spew them out of his mouth because they were lukewarm. Prideful and wanting their way not His way. We are told greet each other Paul said with a holy kiss in 1 Corinthians 16:20, 2 Corinthians 13:12, 1 Thessalonians 5:26. Then Peter said the same thing In 1 Peter 5:14. Seems the apostles thought it necessary to greet people. Yet when folks see that it is the right of the people to not be greeted, then what scripture commands doesn't matter and that was the Laodecian church and its lukewarmness and we see that in many churches today.
He took the meaning of the name of the people in the church in Laodicea to be "the right of the people". I have no idea where he got that definition but anyway he has taken that unsubstantiated definition and applied it to the church in Laodicea and this to today's church.