Does the “Meet & Greet” Belong in Our Worship Services?
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Apparently some are all “shook up” over the practice of greeting visitors during worship services. A variety of polls suggests that most visitors are extremely uncomfortable with this practice. Studies also suggest that many faithful church attendees are also uncomfortable with the practice of greeting the familiar, as well as those who may be new, in the ebb and flow of a church service.
Granted, there is clearly no Scriptural command to include a one minute and twenty-seven second opportunity in the worship service for greeting those you know or don’t know. There are a few passages though that speak to a practice of greeting one another with the “right hand of fellowship” (Galatians 2:9) and in other cases an “agape kiss” (1 Peter 5:14). However, these passages seem to simply report what was done and are not included to give a clear imperative for universal and normative church practice (though it’s enough to convince me of the benefit).
I have spoken previously about different levels of koinonia (fellowship). Interestingly, the “right hand of fellowship” and the “agape kiss” were mainly reserved for those within the church family. Are there implications that might impact the question of greeting one another in a church service? I think there are.
For local fellowship
While I’m not bothered that many church leaders do not include the “meet and greet” in their worship services, the stated reasons why many reject such a practice are, in my view, telling. There seems to be a common theme in the majority of those who reject the practice: “unchurched Harry and Mary,” who are visiting, really don’t want to be greeted.
Apparently, right next to the authority of the Bible is the opinion of the church seeker? This is the same kind of reasoning that fuels the church-growth movement as a whole. Let’s make the non-believer comfortable with church. Have we considered that perhaps church isn’t supposed to be that comfortable for those who are in rebellion against God? That’s not to say we should be rude or unfriendly.
To be clear, if there is a benefit for taking time in the service to encourage “right hands of fellowship” and “agape kisses,” it is primarily for Christ’s family. What I’ve experienced over twenty-three years of ministry is that when believers who are part of the body, or believers who are visiting (as Paul and Barnabas were visiting the believers with Peter in the Galatians passage), are greeted with a handshake or an arm around the shoulder, there is a real ministry of encouragement that takes place. I personally believe this can be an aspect of the comforting ministry of the Holy Spirit. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve embraced believers in a foreign land, who speak a different language, and yet in that momentary embrace volumes are communicated to each other. So the church I pastor includes the 87 seconds of “meet and greet.” I doubt seriously we will be removing the practice any time soon, and there are a variety of reasons why.
For the unchurched and visitors, too
Though the “right-hand of fellowship” and the “agape kiss” seems to have been primarily reserved for recognizing brothers and sisters in the assembly, there seems to be a legitimate role also for welcoming visitors who are outside the membership of the congregation. In our society, greeting one another is a sign of compassion and welcome. Paul explains in Galatians 6:10 that, “as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”
Frankly, not only does Heaven expect that believers would reach out to outsiders, but the outsiders themselves expect it. On a few occasions our folks have not been aggressive in shaking hands and reaching out to visitors. On each of those occasions one of the comments made by a visitor was how disappointing it was that no one greeted them! I think in 16 years that’s happened three times. On all three occasions the congregation was encouraged to do better.
I had the momentary thought after a recent flurry of articles against the “meet and greet” to just inform the next ignored visitor that all the church growth experts happen to know they really don’t want to be put-out by being greeted!
Compassion and openness
I would use an additional argument to defend the practice of greeting one another, using appropriate physical contact. Southeast Valley Baptist Church actually is not only a handshaking church. This will of course make us the laughing stock assembly of “hip” and “cool” church planters everywhere, but—we are a hugging church! We do that appropriately. Our congregation is compassionate and I’m very thankful for that. On a regular basis when that compassion is combined with a warm embrace the one being loved will break down with tears as they share various challenges of life. Talk about a great opportunity for real ministry! That doesn’t happen if you hermitically seal up visitors away from the rest of the congregation in some kind of an invisible “no formal greeting zone!”
There is something powerful when you combine compassion, love, worship and physical touch. I’ve on a few occasions wanted to throw a chalk eraser at some speaker who tells a room full of pastors they should never physically touch other believers. I’m fearful that some fundamentalist preachers are unbalanced in the topic of physical contact because there is something weird and twisted going on sexually, either personally or embedded in the DNA of the ministry they lead. Sex has been so poorly handled (even exegetically) as a biblical topic that we in separatist circles too often struggle in explaining how to have appropriate physical contact with other believers, especially of the other gender. It’s one of the areas that too many segments of fundamentalism handles irresponsibly.
The result of that has been multi-faceted. To say you can shepherd the sheep and not touch them is—unfathomable! Of course, so many churches and “church leaders” have lost the real meaning of what a shepherd is and what sheep are. Sheep have become computer numbers representing “giving units” instead of precious co-laborers who are dear to us in the faith as our own family.
Fighting exclusivity
Coming back to the topic at hand (pun intended!) there is one more reason I think it’s good to lead our church members into a season of greeting others who are present for Sunday worship. Our church (like every church) attracts a few believers every now and then who are tempted to enjoy their little circle of accepted friends (think “smug little clique”) at the expense of the rest of the body.
James 2 warns against reaching out with a warm welcome to the “golden fingered man” (James 2:2-3) while ignoring everyone else. That being the case, I like the practice of stretching the comfort zone of believers who would just prefer to only be with the two or three people they like. They need to understand they are in deep need of growing out of their selfish little bubble into God’s bigger world. Actually our congregation is probably as healthy as it has ever been in reaching out to different kinds of people with true Christ-like love and I’m thankful for it.
Of course this kind of thing makes some Christians uncomfortable, but as their pastor I’m not interested in their being more comfortable—I’m interested in their growing in Christ likeness! We have far too much individualism and spoiled-brathood in the body of Christ in North America for me to remove a practice just because some Christian (or even some visitor who may be seeking a God of his own imagining) doesn’t like to be bothered by greeting another believer who may be different than he is.
If visitors are truly offended by 87 seconds of greeting as the first step of “body life,” well, they can be offended! Part of a visitor’s seeking and thinking through a relationship with God is “counting the cost” of faith and repentance. Jesus makes the point (Luke 14:26) that part of the cost of discipleship is taking on a new family. That kind of “new family commitment” is going to demand much more uncomfortable elements than shaking hands with a complete stranger for 5 seconds!
One good counterargument
Having said all of that, I can think of one potentially good reason to junk the 87 second “meet and greet.” Some believers actually think they have fulfilled the “one-another’s” in the New Testament because they spend those 87 seconds each week reaching out to people who they might otherwise ignore. The 87 seconds is such a pathetic replacement for real body-life, it actually might be good in some cases to remove the 87 seconds so the church realizes one-another ministry requires far, far more.
In these days of automated, “have big church your way” innovation, I love the little antidote that comes from December 1989 Bits & Pieces. Mamie Adams always went to a branch post office in her town because the postal employees there were friendly. She went there to buy stamps just before Christmas one year and the lines were particularly long. Someone pointed out that there was no need to wait in line because there was a stamp machine in the lobby. “I know,” said Mamie, “but the machine won’t ask me about my arthritis.”
Joel Tetreau 2014 Bio
Joel Tetreau has over twenty years of pastoral ministry experience and presently serves as senior pastor at Southeast Valley Bible Church in Gilbert, AZ and as the Western Coordinator of the Institute of Biblical Leadership. He earned his MDiv at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary and his DMin at Central Seminary. He is married to Toni and is the father of three sons.
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I’m kind of ambivalent about the m & g.
I can’t really see any strong reason to not do it. Joel has several strong points in favor, and I’d add that though the m & g can be a kind of interruption of worship, maybe the problem in that case is an overly formal and overly narrow idea of what the worship service is supposed to accomplish.(I’m convinced we need both “high,” formal worship and also more informal worship). Anyway, the apostles who encouraged greeting didn’t seem to be worried about whether it was part of the liturgy. Paul doesn’t say “greet one another… but make sure it isn’t between the gloria patri and the Scripture reading. That would be totally out of place.”
On the other hand, almost everything Joel mentions in favor of the m & g can be accomplished just as effectively, if not more effectively, in the church lobby between services or at other events. The difference is that lobby m & g is less structured and more initiative is required from members to step up and say hello to someone. Maybe both-and is better than either or.
In defense of those who don’t shake or hug… I don’t think sex has anything to do with it, other than—in some cases—an excessive zeal to avoid impropriety. It’s great that they want to keep things proper, but it’s clearly not healthy or biblical if we become touch-ophobic. Holiness doesn’t mean becoming robots. (Some have a huge fear of where alot of hugging might lead, but I wonder if anybody’s studied whether it actually leads to improper relationships any more than not-hugging does. I really doubt it.)
But touchy-feely-huggy types need to understand that not everybody is wired that way. Some folks are demonstrative and emotionally-open. Some are more reserved and emotionally private. Each can learn a lot from the other to avoid unedifying extremes. I’m not a hugger… but when I’m surrounded by people who are, I find that joining in works out just fine, and I’m often the better for it. (Got hugged more on one Sunday in Brazil than a year of Sundays at my home church! …but I think both are just fine.)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Here are my reasons:
Awkward-Picture a small church that has occasional visitors. While the piano plays, 40 members surround two visitors to make them feel welcome.
Useless: No visitors but we do the required M and G any way.
Breaks the flow of a worship service: Prayer and singing interrupted by too many minutes of people milling around while singing “There’s a Welcome Here”.
And then there was the member who told me he liked the M and G because he didn’t have time to talk to anyone before or after the service.
And then there was the time I was visiting a rather large church and during its M and G, introduced myself as Bob Jones to everyone who shook my hand and got nothing but polite smiles and greetings in response.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
As someone who thinks calling a church service “worship” is unscriptural (although I do believe worship does take place during typical church meetings), and one who believes the church is to do all things in its meetings for edification (which is both vertical and horizontal), I see things differently.
I Corinthians 14:26b in NASB reads:
Let all things be done for edification.
The context is not life (I do not need to do everything in life for edification), but a church meeting. Why have we lost this truly Scriptural perspective and substituted the idea that all things are to be done for worship, which is merely part of the whole (edification includes and nurtures worship, but is ALSO more others directed).
I believe greeting one another is a very good idea (I Peter 5:15, although I believe the kiss is cultural).
I am blowing the whistle. Stop assuming a worship format and listen to the actual words of the New Testament. Stop reading “worship” when the New Testament paradigm is Edification.
"The Midrash Detective"
I don’t feel like I’ve “met” someone if all I did was shake their hand and get their name, which I will likely forget before I get back to my seat.
I agree with those who feel like the traditional “meet and greet” breaks up the flow of the service. I much prefer to arrive to church early to have time to meet and greet, and stay a few minutes after to chat and at the very least have enough conversation so that I can form a mnemonic to remember their name. And sometimes sitting in church is the first time I’ve sat down all week in an atmosphere where nothing is expected of me except to listen and learn.
I have no problems with shaking hands, but I am not a hugger. However, when I became involved in Deaf ministry, I had to set aside my aversion to hands-on greetings and just go with it. My friends often made fun of me (good-naturedly) because they knew how difficult it was. I’m still not totally comfortable with hugging, especially when it is spontaneous and I’m not expecting it.
I skipped my own church last Sunday to visit another church - visit about once every 4 or 5 years. Was greeted in the lobby by a gentleman who asked me too many questions and made me feel uncomfortable.
On a previous visit I ended up on the 2nd row and read the bulletin while the pastor had all the visitors stand and introduce themselves. At the end the pastor singled me out to stand, since the church had “missed” welcoming me - very embarrassing!
I do like the greet time at my church but we are under 40 in attendance when everyone shows up.
I also no longer fill out visitor cards when I visit a church, whether in town or when traveling.
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[JohnBrian] I skipped my own church last Sunday to visit another church - visit about once every 4 or 5 years. Was greeted in the lobby by a gentleman who asked me too many questions and made me feel uncomfortable.My dh and I have done the visiting thing on and off for four years, and there’s nothing worse than being singled out like that, IMO. I don’t feel welcomed at all, I feel like I’ve had a target painted on my forehead so the church membership recruiters can find me and tell me all the reasons why we should join their church. We never go back if the primary message we receive during any “meet and greet” is “join our church”. Especially when they ask us where we met (my dh is from NJ and I’m from WV, and this is obvious the minute we open our mouths), and we say “Bible college” and their response is “Hey, if you join our church, we can put you to work right away!”On a previous visit I ended up on the 2nd row and read the bulletin while the pastor had all the visitors stand and introduce themselves. At the end the pastor singled me out to stand, since the church had “missed” welcoming me - very embarrassing!
Yes, this has happened, and more than once.
[Ron Bean]Ron, in the OP Joel makes a point that he thinks the M&G is for the body, not for visitors.Here are my reasons:
Awkward-Picture a small church that has occasional visitors. While the piano plays, 40 members surround two visitors to make them feel welcome.
Useless: No visitors but we do the required M and G any way.
Breaks the flow of a worship service: Prayer and singing interrupted by too many minutes of people milling around while singing “There’s a Welcome Here”.
And then there was the member who told me he liked the M and G because he didn’t have time to talk to anyone before or after the service.
And then there was the time I was visiting a rather large church and during its M and G, introduced myself as Bob Jones to everyone who shook my hand and got nothing but polite smiles and greetings in response.
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Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)
Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA
Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University
It may well be that the in-service m & g requires an optimal size congregation. If you have 40 or less, I can see how the surround-the-visitor thing might be more likely, compared to 100+ , where folks are going to instinctively not try to mob the visitor… if they even know who is a visitor.
…but a bit of training could solve this problem too. Regulars should be encouraged to greet those close to them, not cross the auditorium/aisle, etc… and they can be helped to understand that it’s a bit frightening for visitors to be over-greeted.
My family and I visited several churches also before we settled where we are now. I don’t remember who did m & g and who didn’t… but I don’t remember being intimidated by that. Still, I have to say I’ve generally felt more comfortable w/one or two folks greeting me in a lobby.
Agree w/Joel that it’s not all about comfort, but the goal should be win-win: ways to help folks connect and at the same time not alienate guests.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
My take is that all too often, “meet & greet” is a way to get peoples minds off the afternoon football game or lunch and remind them that the church is the body of Christ and people, not a building. Something like training wheels to get people to actually love one another. My wife and I routinely end up talking with one family (sometimes old, sometimes new) when someone makes the “mistake” of answering “how are you doing today?” honestly and not with the blanket “fine.”
And if I were Susan R, I’d answer the question about where she met her spouse with “at an AC/DC concert” or something like that just out of orneriness. :^)
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Bert Perry]And if I were Susan R, I’d answer the question about where she met her spouse with “at an AC/DC concert” or something like that just out of orneriness. :^)
My wife has done something like that. She answered a question about how she was doing with a negative answer, and the other person just continued walking right past after that answer, and it took them about halfway up the aisle to realize what my wife had just said!
We only do the “meet and greet” on Wednesday nights, when it’s mostly our members, and it lasts about 15 minutes, so that people can really find out what’s going on. Much short than that, and I think it’s pointless.
Dave Barnhart
we formally greet each other and visitors while the choir comes down after they’ve sung. The pianist plays the next hymn to be sung. After the am service, there’s a coffee and goody time. One factor is HSBC get visitors from around the country and the world. Most of whom have no connection with any of the members. On more than one occasion we were found in the yellow pages.
Hoping to shed more light than heat..
Bert Perry wrote:
And if I were Susan R, I’d answer the question about where she met her spouse with “at an AC/DC concert” or something like that just out of orneriness. :^)
[dcbii] My wife has done something like that. She answered a question about how she was doing with a negative answer, and the other person just continued walking right past after that answer, and it took them about halfway up the aisle to realize what my wife had just said!
I could say that when we met, I was at the podium in the chapel doing an impression of Billy Crystal’s impression of Fernando Lamas. That would be the truth. And Ken was very impressed, obviously.
So to let you all squirm to the next level - on one occasion when we had essentially the core group of our most faithful families (I think this was back when we had Sunday PM service) - I asked each person as they visited to share what the Lord was doing in their life with the other person - I think we took ten minutes or so. I then asked folks to stand behind the person they had just been visiting and to put their hands on their shoulder and pray publically and specifically for any needs they could pray for (if the issue was not a sensitive issue). I learned this one from my mentor Dr. James Singleton. I remember him doing a similar thing in our small groups back at Tri-City Baptist when I was a student at IBC (back in the day). You can’t believe the effect. It brought the core group together even closer. No we would not have done that to visitors …… but for the core of leadership ….. it was fantastic.
For whatever it’s worth……..
Straight Ahead!
jt
Dr. Joel Tetreau serves as Senior Pastor, Southeast Valley Bible Church (sevbc.org); Regional Coordinator for IBL West (iblministry.com), Board Member & friend for several different ministries;
Sorry I missed the point of the OP. I just had memories of being a visitor at M & G churches and feeling uncomfortable at an activity that I’d never seen at any other public gathering of people united by a common bond.
In nearly 40 years of attending churches where M & G was part of the liturgy, I can honestly say that I never benefited from it. There was no time to conduct even a brief conversation and I’d usually already spoken to most of the members before the service or would do so after. It seemed like a case of symbolism over substance.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
My wife and I are uncomfortable with “meet and greet”. We are not “unchurched Harry and Mary” and we do want to be greeted. We have been looking for some time now for a church in our area to join. We have been widening both our distance search and our doctrinal search which requires a lot of soul searching as to what type of churches we could join and where we could compromise without compromising our convictions. Needless to say that requires visiting a lot of churches. It has been our experience that when we visit a church that has meet and greet most of the meet and greet goes on between members. Sometimes these meet and greet times go on for 5 or 10 minutes while everyone chats with one another. We have been in churches that the only ones to shake our hands where people we went up to. I have never had someone at a meet and greet church actually introduce themselves to us, ask our names or why we are visiting. After the service no one speaks to us. I guess because they already “greeted” us. We have actually had one Pastor say from the pulpit, “there’s some visitors everybody go shake their hands” and they all lined up to shake our hands. It was very awkward. We have found churches without a meet and greet time to be much more friendly. They make you feel like they are greeting you because they are glad you are there rather than because they have been told to. I have nothing in agreement with the church-growth movement but if visitors are offended let be the Gospel not how we greet them.
Richard E Brunt
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