All Are Welcome

Sort of ...

I’ve been out of full-time ministry for more than a year, and I have visited a good number of churches in that time, seeing what’s out there in the wide church world while trying to find a place to settle in for regular worship. What I’ve found is that even when a church proclaims on its signage that “All Are Welcome,’’ in practice, that doesn’t actually mean that all are welcome. Too often, it’s clear that “All Are Welcome,” is only an aspirational statement, not a lived reality.

Or as my father used to say, “It’s a good idea, but that’s all it was.”

So here’s what I’ve discovered about churches and their welcome, or their botched welcome, or sometimes even their No Welcome at All:

1. What Are You Trying to Tell Me? So the sign out front says, “All Are Welcome,” and when that is paired with a Pride or Rainbow flag, that actually says something. It says that LGBTQ+ folks and their allies will find this church to be a safe space. OK, good start! But what else does the sign say? Does it say anything about the kind of people you will meet inside, or the kind of God worshipped at this church? Does the sign say anything at all, apart from worship times? Does it even have its worship times posted and are they correct???? (You’d be surprised. The biggest horror is appearing at the posted worship time and finding out they’ve switched to summer time worship, which is an hour earlier from when you showed up — or that the building is empty, because everyone is off having church in some park somewhere. Because they didn’t change the sign…)

And don’t get me started on the ugly, outdated, and confusing websites so many churches have (I don’t need to know what the Christmas worship schedule is if I am checking you out in February!), or the way they keep trying to drive people to their Facebook page. This is not helpful for the huge number of people who have left FB entirely, or who, in the case of most people under 40, have zero interest in FB. Like, do you even have a TikTok? Centering your online identity on FB announces: “We are all Boomers here.”

Or if I want to join anonymously by livestream before daring to walk through a real life church door … is it easy to do that? Because you are easily findable on YouTube, for instance? Nothing says “not welcome” like making your livestream a Zoom worship where you have to email for the link ahead of time. Or even if you can click on the webpage’s “join us on Zoom” link, you are immediately KNOWN BECAUSE ZOOM MAKES YOU A TINY LITTLE BOX WITH YOUR FACE AND NAME AND THERE IS NO PRIVACY!!! Finally, is your livestream available every week, or will it only appear when you can find a volunteer to run it? For people who rely on online worship, that feels like showing up for church and being randomly locked out, for no obvious reason.

2. So Am I Welcome, Really? Say I show up at the right time on a Sunday morning, what happens then? The minimum standard is that the building will be accessible to people with a variety of limitations, and a big plus goes to churches offering hearing assistance devices and large print materials. But more than that, what is the quality of the welcome offered? Here are some things that have made me feel less than welcome:

— Ushers and greeters talking over my head to one another as they shove a leaflet in my hand.

— In a church with 12—count them, 12—worshippers, all of whom must have known I was a visitor, not one—not one person—said hello. They talked to each other after worship, and passed by me as though I was invisible.

— Standing at coffee hour with a cup in my hand, watching everyone talk to their friends while I drink my coffee in lonely solitude. Two weeks in a row.

— Worship leaflets that don’t have all of the words of the service printed, but expect me to hop from prayer book to hymnal with no pause to even find the correct page.

— Announcements that tell me to get more information from someone I don’t know, or to go to a meeting in a room that I have no clue how to find, or that use acronyms or short hand terms that clearly all the regulars understand, while I am left baffled.

3. So What DOES Make for a Good Welcome, Then? First, I want to give shoutouts to two churches who do beautiful welcomes (and which I would join, if I lived on Whidbey Island, in Washington state, or in Sarasota, Florida) — the welcoming winners are: St. Augustine’s in the Woods in Freeland, WA.

And St. Boniface on Siesta Key, FL.

Not because their websites are so awesome, but because the people inside the churches are so awesome. Here’s what made their welcomes work.

— Happy greeters and ushers who greeted me as a unique individual, said hello, and in the case of St. Augustine’s, actually got me to wear a ‘visitor’ tag, because they were just so dang nice about it.

— Clergy who made a point to say, “Have I seen you here before?” and chat with me for 30 seconds of heartfelt welcome before handing me off to a super cheery parishioner who helped me find coffee hour.

— Other members who stopped, said hello, asked what brought me there today, told me a little bit about the church community, and then introduced me to someone else when they were done talking to me.

— Legit expressions of love and friendship among the members. Like watching a number of people stop on their way back from communion to hug a man in a wheelchair who clearly had been away from church for a while, but who had made it back at last. But also feeling like that love and friendship was open enough (not clique-ish) to include me.

— And when I filled out and handed in a visitor card, the follow up from the church office happened within the next three days. And made it easy for me to get on the email list and to figure out what the next steps would be if I wanted to get more engaged with the community.

And while this didn’t happen at these two churches, because I was traveling and could only go there once … the best and most awesome welcoming thing that happens to a church visitor is when you go back a second or third time, and the people you talked to on your first visit remember you, greet you, and welcome you back. It is so weird to return to a church you think you might like to join, only to feel just as much a stranger as you did on the first visit.

Welcoming new people can feel awkward, but it’s not hard. Just say hello. Just ask someone’s name. Just say, “so glad you made it here today.” Just ask, “how did you find us, anyway?” Just say hello—again—if that person dares to return.

That’s how “All Are Welcome” becomes reality, not just some words on a church sign.