{"id":4704,"date":"2013-07-08T11:32:45","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T15:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/?p=4704"},"modified":"2014-07-21T10:07:52","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T14:07:52","slug":"a-place-where-people-want-to-worship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/","title":{"rendered":"A Place Where People Want to Worship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several years back, I had the opportunity to study in New York City.\u00a0 And while I was living there, I began looking for a church home.\u00a0 I tried out several churches before visiting one that was just around the corner from my apartment.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I walked in the door, it was immediately apparent that this was going to be a different experience for me.\u00a0 That\u2019s because I was one of maybe four Caucasians in the church.\u00a0 And for this white boy from Texas, that was different.<\/span><\/p>\n

You might ask, \u201cWasn\u2019t that awkward?\u201d To be honest, it was at first.\u00a0 (I have rarely stepped into a new experience without feeling awkward.)\u00a0 But I was already there, so I said to myself, “Let\u2019s give it a shot.”<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m so glad that I did because I learned some important lessons.\u00a0 The first was that the kingdom of God is a whole lot bigger than my small frame of reference.\u00a0 The people at this church loved God and it was evident.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second thing I learned is that friendliness goes a long way.\u00a0 That church called itself \u201cThe friendliest church in New York.\u201d\u00a0 Now, I did not visit every single church while I was there, so I can\u2019t verify that that claim was true.\u00a0 However, based on the way I was treated, I can tell you that if this church was not the friendliest church in New York, it would have given the friendliest church a run for its money.<\/span><\/p>\n

The people there were so welcoming to me that I continued to worship there for the rest of my time in the New York.\u00a0 At a time in my life when I was a new believer, living in a new city, building all new relationship, this church made me feel like I was part of a family.<\/span><\/p>\n

Friendliness goes a long way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mitigating Risks<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Each person who visits our church is taking a risk.\u00a0 They risk hearing something with which they might not agree.\u00a0 They risk being challenged to make personal changes.\u00a0 They risk feeling different, like they don’t belong.<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s exciting is that each unbeliever who walks through the doors of our church takes a step toward a relationship with Christ.\u00a0 They have come onto our turf so to speak. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That presents us with a tremendous opportunity. \u00a0And if we’re to seize that opportunity, we have to make sure that these guests feel like their visit was worth the risk.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s something else to consider as well. \u00a0If we do not have a heart to reach out here, where we have tons of support, where we have all the resources we need, then will we really reach out when the odds are against us?\u00a0 If our heart is not developed here, will it really reach beyond these doors?<\/span><\/p>\n

If we’re going to effectively carry out the great commission, we need to make the most of the best opportunities. \u00a0To do that, I believe that our services ought to be characterized by an evident concern for the lost, manifested in a friendly, welcoming environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

2 Very Practical Steps<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

STEP 1:\u00a0 Arrive 10 Minutes Early<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve told the folks who attend our first worship service that we need to stop thinking of it as the 8 a.m. service.\u00a0 We need to think of it as the 7:50 worship service.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0 Because arriving 10 minutes early allows you time to talk to those around you before service even begins.\u00a0 It’s hard to be friendly to others if you don’t have time to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

STEP 2:\u00a0 Actively Seek to Build Relationships<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

One of our Adult Bible Fellowship teachers has a class rule:\u00a0 people aren\u2019t allowed to sit down for the first 15 minutes.\u00a0 They have to move around and talk to each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s a great policy.\u00a0 It is too easy to come to church and sit in the chairs and wait for everything to come to you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Building relationships, however, involves getting out of our comfort zone.\u00a0 For some of us, our comfort zone is restricted to the 20″ x 20″ seat we occupy during the worship service.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we want our services to be welcoming, we need to get out of our chairs.\u00a0 We’ve got to be willing to walk up to other people that we may not know well and begin a conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Will that take you out of your comfort zone?\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 It takes me out of mine.\u00a0 But the Apostle Paul had an answer for this.<\/span><\/p>\n

Philippians 2:3-4<\/span>
\n Regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is the value of making someone else feel welcome worth a little personal discomfort? I think each of us ought to answer that question with a resounding “Yes.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Throwing Down the Gauntlet<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

If we are really serious about showing kindness to the others who attend our church, that should create some problems for our worship team.\u00a0 I am encouraging us to become such an inviting church that our commitment to building relationships would actually make it challenging for our worship team to get our worship services started.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s be up front about this.\u00a0 It would take a lot of work to make that happen. Nevertheless, I dare you to drive our worship team crazy with your heart for others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s amp up the level of friendliness, the level of relationship-building, the level of getting-up-out-of-your-chair-and-talking-to-people in our worship services.\u00a0 Let continue to make our church a place where people want to worship.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That church I attended called itself \u201cThe friendliest church in New York.\u201d Now, I did not visit every single church while I was there, so I can\u2019t verify that that claim was true. However, based on the way I was treated, I can tell you that if this church was not the friendliest church in New York, it would have given the friendliest church a run for its money.<\/p>\n

The people there were so welcoming to me that I continued to worship there for the rest of my time in the New York. At a time in my life when I was a new believer, living in a new city, building all new relationship, this church made me feel like I was part of a family.<\/p>\n

Friendliness goes a long way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4237,97,257],"tags":[11811,229,4250],"yoast_head":"\nA Place Where People Want to Worship - Faith Church Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Place Where People Want to Worship - Faith Church Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That church I attended called itself \u201cThe friendliest church in New York.\u201d Now, I did not visit every single church while I was there, so I can\u2019t verify that that claim was true. However, based on the way I was treated, I can tell you that if this church was not the friendliest church in New York, it would have given the friendliest church a run for its money. The people there were so welcoming to me that I continued to worship there for the rest of my time in the New York. At a time in my life when I was a new believer, living in a new city, building all new relationship, this church made me feel like I was part of a family. Friendliness goes a long way.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith Church Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"-0001-11-30T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-07-21T14:07:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/faith-blog-assets.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/20170523133543\/2012-10-14-Worship-Service-Still002.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"349\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Trey Garner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Trey Garner\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/\",\"name\":\"A Place Where People Want to Worship - Faith Church Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"-0001-11-30T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-07-21T14:07:52+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/d97312e41428aa529c70105e859f763e\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Place Where People Want to Worship\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/\",\"name\":\"Faith Church Blog\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/d97312e41428aa529c70105e859f763e\",\"name\":\"Trey Garner\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/faith-blog-assets.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/20200408121956\/GarnerTrey.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/faith-blog-assets.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/20200408121956\/GarnerTrey.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Trey Garner\"},\"description\":\"Trey Garner is the Pastor of Children's Ministries at Faith Church. He has been married to his wife Deb since 2001. They have two children named Noah and Lauren. Originally from Texas, Trey appreciates barnwood, armadillos, and Blue Bell Ice Cream.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/author\/tgarner\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Place Where People Want to Worship - Faith Church Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Place Where People Want to Worship - Faith Church Blog","og_description":"That church I attended called itself \u201cThe friendliest church in New York.\u201d Now, I did not visit every single church while I was there, so I can\u2019t verify that that claim was true. However, based on the way I was treated, I can tell you that if this church was not the friendliest church in New York, it would have given the friendliest church a run for its money. The people there were so welcoming to me that I continued to worship there for the rest of my time in the New York. At a time in my life when I was a new believer, living in a new city, building all new relationship, this church made me feel like I was part of a family. Friendliness goes a long way.","og_url":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/","og_site_name":"Faith Church Blog","article_published_time":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-07-21T14:07:52+00:00","og_image":[{"width":620,"height":349,"url":"https:\/\/faith-blog-assets.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/20170523133543\/2012-10-14-Worship-Service-Still002.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Trey Garner","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Trey Garner","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/","url":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/","name":"A Place Where People Want to Worship - Faith Church Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/#website"},"datePublished":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2014-07-21T14:07:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/d97312e41428aa529c70105e859f763e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/a-place-where-people-want-to-worship\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Place Where People Want to Worship"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/","name":"Faith Church Blog","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/d97312e41428aa529c70105e859f763e","name":"Trey Garner","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/faith-blog-assets.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/20200408121956\/GarnerTrey.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/faith-blog-assets.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/20200408121956\/GarnerTrey.jpg","caption":"Trey Garner"},"description":"Trey Garner is the Pastor of Children's Ministries at Faith Church. He has been married to his wife Deb since 2001. They have two children named Noah and Lauren. Originally from Texas, Trey appreciates barnwood, armadillos, and Blue Bell Ice Cream.","url":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/author\/tgarner\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4704"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5651,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704\/revisions\/5651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.faithlafayette.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}