I pray that God will minister to you through the wisdom of this young leader in the Christian community.
Do You Have a Vision Problem
Ben Reed
I visited a church recently, and found it to be less than friendly. In fact, we felt like we were outsiders.They used lots of “insider” language, barely acknowledged that visitors were even present, and talked about situations that one would only know about if he or she were a regular attender.
The problem, as I saw it, wasn’t a lack of volunteers. It wasn’t even a lack of skilled volunteers. There were plenty of capable folks who could have made us feel warm and welcomed.
The problem wasn’t that the pastor and leaders couldn’t communicate in such a way that first-timers could get it.
The problem wasn’t a lack of organization on the part of the leadership and the “welcome” committee.
The problem is that they didn’t want to.
By not communicating the importance of welcoming outsiders, they had structured their service in such a way that those who are new felt awkward, unwelcomed, and ultimately unwanted.
People want to be led. They’ll be led where the leader takes them.
If there’s a problem with vitally important tasks consistently not being carried out, maybe the finger needs to be pointed at you, the leader.
Are you regularly casting vision for those things that are most important? Where are you taking those you’re leading?
Visit Ben Reed' Blog at www.benreed.net or follow him on twitter www.twitter/benreed
6 comments:
This is so true and relevant to not only southern Baptist but to other denominations as well. It is a shame that professing Christians most times do not " motto" there faith, instead religion is exercised with tediousness and the appearance of a welcoming attitude,Luring new believers in only to repel them once they have been so rudely shunned and made to feel as if the churches standard is" too high" this should not be so. It is often true that the leaders in the church lack vision, however as the author stated sometimes the people simply don't want too. what do we do to remedy this problem? We continue to pray and to enlist those who do want to see growth in the church and begin to build. Though it may seem as if we are shutting others out it would be interesting to see how many Of them will begin to follow once they actually get a glimpse of what god is doing in the lives of the faithfull, surely they will want a piece of that. Read Matthew 13: 24-30
I'm not a leader in the church but this is so important. I attended a number of churches where felt awkward or unwelcome. Both before I was a believer and after. For years I didn't go to church at all because of this. Fortunately I read my bible continuously and developed my relationship with the Lord. Sadly, I walked alone as a believer for many years.
Great post! Keep it up!
@edie I can so relate to your situation!
I completly agree with the guest post, and both comments. This is truly an issue that should be addressed.
Question is how? Any ideas, suggestons to resolve this issue?
what are some ideas of how a So Baptist or any other denomination local church can cast a good vision upon it's leaders, that is then filtered down to the rest of the congregation to minimize this type of experience at the church?
Nicky :-)
Aloha.. I was so blessed to that you came by today, I know we all get busy both at work and ministry, but isn't it nice to knoe we are just a click away from our brothers and sister here on our Blogging journeys. I can so relate to this post, and I am finding it very uncomfortable with all the cliques, favortism and just plain leaving people out. I see it everyday and it just grieves my spirit and I know the Lord is not pleased!!
Blessings Lorie
Great post...(Other than The Message that is preached) This is priority number one for us as a leadership team. The goal of the body should be creating communities where outsiders feel welcome. The only thing we want unbelievers to stumble on is the Message of Jesus Christ. I am expectant of that. What should not happen is people stumbling on things other than that.
(Nicky) Ways that we battle against this at Connections:
- Constantly casting this vision, not only from the stage, but off stage, via non-leadership meetings.
This is huge. Making sure that everyone from Small Group leaders, to visitors, knows that this is a priority not just in word but in action to us really conveys that it isn't just lip service, but something that is a priority.
- Actively removing "christanese" from sermons. This isnt always easy, but this really is a big deal. When you replace words that are common to the long time church gooer not only do you make the visitors feel welcome (because you aren't using words over there head), you engage the believers because the word doesn't just bounce off without them listening.
- Constantly evaluating your environment from the perspective of a visitor to remove any potential stumbling blocks
- We visit other churches, not judgmentally, but to help us see as visitors things we don't see otherwise. Please understand that we dont do this judgementally, I am actually very positive about the other churches we visit, however it does help you do identify as a visitor yourself those pitfalls.
- Things as simple as lack of signs pointing you to childrens areas can make a visitor feel intimidated.
- How your lobby area is layed out can help promote people (assuming the people understand it is expected)
spending time conversing before/after service.
These are a few of the things that we do at CX to actively promote an environment where people feel welcome and included.
Thanks for the post brother. Keep it up!
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