Are you sending mixed messages?
First let me be very clear…I’m not making fun of you and I’m not trying to pick on you. If you your guilty of some of what I’m about to talk about, I’m bringing something to your attention to give you a new perspective. I’m really not trying to be critical to simply be critical. That goes for everything you read here, I’m not trying to beat anyone up…I want to point some things out and hopefully help the church in the way it communicates.
If I were to ask you if you were “visitor friendly” I would imagine you would say yes, of course you are. After all you do many things to welcome guests to your church. But what about the things that happen once they get there? Do you say that you want to welcome guests and then do things that alienate them? Let me give you a few observations and some suggestions along the way.
Your words make a difference. Just because your circle uses certain words, and just because they sound natural to you…for those outside the church much of our vocabulary is foreign. Words like exegesis, sanctification, backsliding are just not part of people’s normal vocabulary. On a Sunday morning when you have a mixed crowd and are trying to speak to the outsider use their language. Say “explanation of the scripture”, “grow spiritual”, and “screwed up”. Here’s a great (and quite humorous) translations for some other Christianese phrases.
Not everyone was brought up in the church. That means not everyone knows the Lord’s prayer, the doxology, or even John 3:16. Use your screens, even when it might seem redundant to you. It helps people to stay with you and not feel like such an outsider. And please, make sure whoever is running your projection is on top of the content, make sure they can follow along and even judge your next move.
“everyone stand up and raise your bible…” The bible shouldn’t be your ticket into church and I don’t really think it’s your job as a pastor to make someone feel guilty for not bringing theirs to church. Maybe they don’t have one, maybe they left it at home…does it really matter? If you want people to have a bible, put one in nearby. If you think that people bringing a bible to church = a committed churchgoer…well, putting on my ski coat doesn’t qualify me for ski patrol. Instead let’s show people how relevant and engaging God’s word is…give them a reason to dig into their bible at home because quite honestly they don’t need it so much on Sunday morning, but they do need it a whole lot on Friday night.
What did I leave out? Here are 10 other ways from David to make guests feel unwelcome. What are others ways that we send mixed messages to our guests?
Tags: christianese, guests, message, welcome, word