Hi,
After reading all the bad/unwelcoming church experiences, I would like to tell you about my good experience with our church :-)
Less than a year ago my wife and I moved to Sydney and lower North Shore, and heard about an Anglican church planting church called Church by the Bridge (CBTB) at Kirribilli.
I think the most important reason why we came back (and now part of CBTB) is that we felt welcome at the church; the minister (Paul Dale) and the “welcome_group” are people who was (and still are!!!) interested in us and how we could be a part of the church family.
There are probably more than me that have a GOOD experience. Let me know what would be the key factor for you to feel welcome to a new church?

Hi Robert,

Some years ago, when we first visited a (Uniting) church congregation in the “Shire”, people were very friendly and one of the lay leader couples welcomed us to lunch at their place that same day.

As a result we stayed at that church for several years until we escaped from the Shire.

Of course, a first day lunch invitation may be “too much” for some visitors - and possibly put some people off coming again.

I think you would need to be sensitive enough to assess each situation individually.

Grace & peace,

Terry

When it is obvious that Jesus and his word matter to the people who are gathered

When it is like a caring family gathering, a mini reunion, party, each week! How special is that!

When I am aware of being with people who are very different, yet united because of love for Jesus and one another.

When people will speak the truth in love and bear one another’s burdens.

Dianne Howard - 31 July 2007 01:46 PM

When it is obvious that Jesus and his word matter to the people who are gathered

When it is like a caring family gathering, a mini reunion, party, each week! How special is that!

Hi Dianne,

I like your expression a caring family gathering, a mini reunion, party each week:

In Matthew 22:2 Jesus said:
“The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.”

Yes, it’s great that in our current Sunday evening congregation, after the service concludes those attending (mainly aged under 30) just mill around and talk and talk in the church itself.

Very hard to get them to leave the gathering even with the offer of supper in another hall!

It seems to say to visitors that these people want to be here, want to stay here and show caring love to each other.

Grace & peace,

Terry

Nearly all churches I have visited have been welcoming. It’s just a matter of degree. I’ve been welcomed by extroverts, introverts, the very young ("What’s your name?"), physically disabled and the elderly.

Some Christians welcome in a very warm and friendly manner and others have a more reserved approach to welcoming. And of course, there are shades in between.

The wonderful thing about leaving behind my teens and early 20s is that if no one welcomes me, I no longer stand around desperately wondering “Why.” Rather, I know that gathered here are my brothers and sisters-in-Christ whom God has chosen to be His and that’s all I need to know to motivate me to introduce myself (and hopefully find out how they became a Christian).

On Sunday last, a family of 7 visited our church for the first time. I spoke with 4 year old David before meeting the rest of his tribe. There was nothing boring about our conversation. He looked long and hard at me and said “I think I’ll come tomorrow too.” He wasn’t happy about that! I told him that I felt the same way.

still tickled pink
Angela

Oops, forgot to say: “Thanks for the encouraging topic, Robert.”

On Easter Day 207, I was in Barcelona, and I googled-searched for an English church, and found one in the suburbs - it was a bit of trek from the nearest metro station, but I got there about 15 minutes into the service.

The church - St George’s Anglican Church in the Diocese of Gibralter - was packed with lots of extra chairs at the back and people from all nations, and I sat down next to a lady from Melbourne who said she recognised I was an Aussie from my singing voice and gave me her phone number in case I got into any trouble in Spain.

Barcelona is a wonderful city, and i heartily recommend the Anglican Church in Barcelona - it considers itself as a community church for all English speakers, and the people there really seemed to love the Lord and His gospel.  it’s often hard to get to church when you are on holiday, but I felt so much part of God’s family that day.

The week before, I went to church on Palm Sunday evening in the Presbyterian Church of St. George-Tron on Buchanan Street Glasgow; and heard an excellent message (and what message isn’t excellent when said in a Scottish accent?), sang great hymns, and was immediately invited by someone to stay for coffee and bikkies - brought out on trolleys into the church.  Great place.  My first ever time in a presbyterian church.  Won’t be my last.

I often feel lonely when I’m on holiday, but when I am welcomed into a church I feel right at home.  Even when nobody has approached or said a word of welcome, I have been uplifed by just being there and taking part in their worship.

In my charge in Kalgoorlie WA, we get a lot of visitors from particularly Anglican churches around Australia on their grey nomad “victory lap” of the country; many of them wear their badges from the church where they come from - It immediately says “we’re visitors” and advertises that they have a special denominational link to us.  There is always plenty to talk about in the morning tea afterwards.

I just love it when I go to a church as a visitor and get evangelized by one of the regulars. It has happened to me in two places that I can recall, one where I was the student minister, and the other where I was soon to be the assistant.

In the second situation, I got a great spiel about how the fellow I was talking to used to think that Christianity was all about keeping the rules and turning up to church, but then he realized it was all about forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

Even when I told him I was about to become the assistant minister, he kept going, which I thought was fantastic. He quite rightly wanted to make sure that if he was going to be contributing towards my pay, then I ought to be darn sure I was straight on the gospel. (Well done David Partlett!)

When I first went to my present Church, I was “just browsing”.  The church I had been attending had closed, so I needed a new one.  A lady sat next to me during the service and at the end asked if I was visiting or a newcomer, I explained that I was looking for a good Bible-based church (interesting that we now use that term a lot, but some people still think it’s a tautology), and that I would be going to a few more but might be back.  The next week, I turned up at the next Church I was checking out, to find that I had gotten the time wrong, and they had started 20 minutes earlier.  Mortified, I wouldn’t go in, where could I go instead? I know, St Stephen’s is due to start in ten minutes.  So I drove to St Stephen’s where I was greeted like a long lost friend, and I never left.
The things that I liked about it?  The fact that someone spoke to me in a friendly but not intimidating way, the fact that the sermons were good (I guess that should be a given), and the fact that when I came back, they remembered me!

Jeremy’s article said:
But that’s the rub, says report author, the Rev Dr Tim Foster. The data shows that the churches who have a high number of newcomers share three factors:
they are community-focused,
they are flexible and innovative in their approach to new ministry ideas, and they try to offer a warm welcome to strangers.

Coming back to the five “inner-city trendy area” churches that had the highest conversion growth in SydAng South Sydney region....

Many congregations would say they are “community-focused” and “offer a warm welcome to strangers”, so perhaps the guts of it is in being
flexible and innovative in their approach to new ministry ideas.

If there are any reps of those congregations lurking here perhaps you could expand on which new ministry ideas worked well and which ones didn’t work please?

Grace & peace,

Terry

I feel most welcome when churches have all types of people with not much in common, but they still all love eachother and talk to eachother (so there’s no strong dominant group which you feel you should be part of to really fit in).  When the trappings don’t have to be professional, but people are just keen to hear from and talk/sing to God.

Many congregations would say they are “community-focused” and “offer a warm welcome to strangers”, so perhaps the guts of it is in being
flexible and innovative in their approach to new ministry ideas.

I don’t quite agree with you on that Terry. Most churches may well say think they are ‘community focused’ and ‘welcoming’ but are they actually doing it? effectively?

Of the five church listed - yes they are all flexible and innovative - to various degrees but looking at the evidence I don’t think that is the only unifying characteristic. Each of them - but especially the two top performers - have indentified a key bridge into their own local, non-christian neighbourhood.

For Coogee, it is a playgroup which has been extraordinarily well received by their local community. I wouldn’t describe running a playgroup as an amazingly ‘out of the box’ idea. But Coogee have implemented the idea professionally and thought about how to integrate the playgroup into an evangelistic/welcoming program.

But furthermore the playgroup particularly works well amongst the ‘Coogee mums’. Running a playgroup might not work well elsewhere where there are a lot of DINKs or retirees or double-income parents with their kids in professional childcare etc. The point is knowing your community and then how to build a bridge to them.