{"id":13078,"date":"2012-11-28T11:28:09","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T19:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/?p=13078"},"modified":"2012-12-06T14:34:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T22:34:14","slug":"i-choose-friendly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/i-choose-friendly\/","title":{"rendered":"I Choose Friendly"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

This is a Guest Post by John Walker, one of the authors in the book,\u00a0Finding Church<\/em>.<\/a>\u00a0Previous posts by John include Should I Go to Church<\/a>, and I Don’t Understand Church<\/a>.\u00a0John and his wife are retired and enjoy gardening, walking their dogs, and cooking.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you would like to write a guest post for this blog,\u00a0<\/span>check out the guidelines here.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Friendly\"After visiting numerous churches in the town to which I had recently moved I decided that the employees at Home Depot were much friendlier than are the people in the churches I\u2019d visited. Most people had ignored me<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When I finally found a church<\/a> with a few friendly people and decided to attend, I immediately discovered that even there most of the congregation ignored me. On my third Sunday I approached eight or nine people, one at a time, stuck out my hand to shake theirs and announced \u201cHi! My name\u2019s John Walker. I don\u2019t believe I know you, so I thought I\u2019d come over and say hello.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone told me their name and asked how long I\u2019d been attending the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree weeks. How about you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost everyone had been attending for years. Two or three said something like \u201cThree weeks? You\u2019re new. I should have introduced myself to you. Welcome to our church.\u201d<\/p>\n

One person, however, told me that he was there for the first time. When he asked me how long I had been attending, he was surprised to learn that I had been there just three times, but also expressed how delighted he was to have someone introduce themself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve visited a bunch of churches and this is the first one where anyone has done this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

An idea was born. I decided that I would introduce myself to everyone in the church over the coming weeks, and especially try to locate visitors and new people and try to make them feel welcome.<\/p>\n

After several months I knew everyone in the church, over three hundred people in all. That\u2019s a lot of names to remember, so I kept pages of notes, \u201ccheat sheets\u201d if you will, to help me remember their names.<\/p>\n

Next to each name, I wrote something to help me remember them, such as \u201cstriped hat\u201d or \u201cblonde hair\u201d. I resisted the urge to write anything uncomplimentary about anyone, in case I lost my cheat sheets. I did not want anyone to see something like \u201cfat old lady with wrinkled hose\u201d written next to Harriet\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

Each Sunday I greeted everyone I saw by name. After a few months, my cheat sheets were permanently tucked inside the back cover of my Bible. To greet as many people as possible, I made a habit of hanging around near the outside main entrance to the church.<\/p>\n

People I greeted would stop and chat, some for a few moments and some for much longer. I heard their stories, their joys, and their sorrows. After a couple of years I knew almost everyone as well as the pastor did.<\/p>\n

Even though most of the people in the church had initially ignored me, I decided to be friendly to them and to take the time to get to know them. Everywhere I went, be it the grocery store, the hardware store or the street, I ran into people I knew. Many of them attended the church and many had only visited. However, almost everyone remembered the friendly guy from the church.<\/p>\n

In addition to getting to know everyone in the church, with the support of the pastor I devised what I think of as an intentional plan to incorporate new people into the body of the church. In my next post here on TillHeComes, \u201cWhen Friendly Isn\u2019t Enough,\u201d we\u2019ll follow a fictional family as they visit the church for the first time and look at not only what they see, but also at what happens behind the scenes both during their visit and in the following weeks.<\/p>\n

What has your experience been in greeting people and getting to know people at your church?<\/em><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently visited a church and since no one greeted me, decided to greet everyone I met. I became as friendly as I could. I soon knew everyone in church. Are you attending a church? Do you make sure to greet and meet other people – especially those you do not know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1336],"class_list":{"0":"post-13078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"tag-guest-post","8":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nI Choose Friendly<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I recently visited a church and since no one greeted me, decided to greet everyone I met. 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