Church is stressful

When dealing with visitors to a congregation there is a balance to be struck between providing enough contact and introduction to make someone feel welcome and respecting his/her anonymity or need for space. A balance, I say, a balance!

Today I decided to attend a church here in Iowa City for the first time. I chose a church whose statements of mission are very welcoming, open and inclusive. Their website wasn't spectacular, but certainly accessible with pictures and biographies etc. However, my experience with the actual place was not nearly what I expected.

Granted, the church is undergoing some fairly substantial renovations, which makes front door access mostly impossible. A bit daunting for a visitor. The side door awning-covered vehicle drop-off was certainly easy to spot, however.

I also did not recheck the time of service and arrived at 10:15 for a 10:45 service. So I wandered into their very animated, talkative coffee hour. I got myself a cup of coffee and said "good morning" to the gentleman refilling the cup of spoons just across the counter from me. No response. Ummm... okay.

I get my coffee, and wander through the open fellowship space, the narthex, and the entryway smile politely at people, say a couple of "hi"s, and read most of their bulletin boards and announcements and such, including their renovation layout plans. I even stand in front of their "visitor info" and read through a copy of their newsletter. They also have two permanent name tag stands, where regular members can pick out their name tags to wear every Sunday. However there is no table or location for guests to create a name tag. Strange.

I get myself a 2nd cup of coffee and sit down at an empty round table. Two people sit down across from me shortly thereafter. I smile. They ignore me. Two more gentleman promptly join the other two and have a casual financial meeting of sorts. One of these latter two men keeps looking at me. I make eye contact and smile, politely drinking my coffee. This goes on for several minutes, them having their non-meeting meeting with guy eyeing me and me drinking coffee, trying not to eavesdrop but still looking at them occasionally. It finally gets so awkward I just get up and leave.

The service was fine, their adult choir is amazing, doing a piece I know Nordic's done before. The sermon is a bit awkward to me because the pastor is REALLY pushing/stretching the mountaintop talk with God analogy. Partially because I envision such things so literally and partially because I've written a similar sermon, it doesn't resonate well. There was a mountaintop/baptism reference in their too (they had baptism at their first service) which I didn't completely follow. In the bulletin was a card that you could fill out for attendance purposes, the top portion for members and the lower for guests/visitors, which you just left in the pew following service.

After the service I am not welcomed by either pastor other than the generic "hello, good morning" recessional greeting. Everyone seems to vacate the premises instantly. There were no greeters. No one introduced themselves to me. No one asked me if I needed something, could find something, needed a name tag. Other than the sharing of the peace and a disabled woman asking me to return her Marty Haugen booklet for her, I felt invisible.

Some days its good to be invisible. Some days I want to be invisible. But there was a distinct lack of any sort of welcome. They didn't strike me as unfriendly people, there was just no system to deal with visitors who didn't come as guests of a congregant. Last week I was guest at a church in Rochester where I instantly felt comfortable. Granted, I knew one of the pastors. But even a different pastor greeted me amongst the throngs leaving the service with a hearty "Welcome! Thanks for coming!" -- he recognized he didn't know me as a regular member. And though I was proactive in starting the conversation, I had a nice, albeit rather odd, exchange with the woman at the "welcome desk."

Anyway. Whatever. I just came home feeling stressed and a bit disheartened. And searching for welcoming, vibrant churches is a daunting task by website alone.

Blah. /sigh.