UMCom releases new welcoming resource

By: Lisa Elliott Diehl On 8/30/2010

Welcoming is…

Going out in the rain to hold an umbrella over the heads of people coming in to worship.

Introducing yourself to someone you don’t know, and listening when they introduce themselves so you can call them by name the next time you see them.

Moving from “your” pew to another pew to help someone new through the worship service.

Being genuine and sincere.

Inviting someone new to participate.

Welcoming is caring and sharing. It’s showing you care about the other person and sharing something about yourself.

Eighty-five people in the Parsons District came together Aug. 29 to talk about what welcoming is and get ideas for how to build welcoming into their church lifestyle.

Using a training resource from United Methodist Communications, participants shared their own experiences and brain-stormed about who might be visiting their congregations for the first time.

I've been leading Welcoming trainings for nine years, and I got three really good ideas yesterday:

If you know a church member is moving to another community with a United Methodist Church, let the church in the new place know your members are coming. If you are the church in the new community, try to find out where they will be living, and send them notes or stop by to visit during move-in to offer help and welcoming them to town. This would be much easier in a small town than in a larger one with many United Methodist churches, but imagine how the folks who are moving will feel. What a wonderful welcome for them!
Want to know how newcomers feel when they come to worship? Try this experiment. Change up the order of worship occassionally to get a sense of what it's like not to know what's going to happen during worship. That's what it's like for people who have never been to worship before.
A new variation on the "Rule of 3" (talk only to people you don't know or don't know well for the first three minutes after church) - introduce a newcomer to at least three other people who are members of the congregation to help them begin to make connections. This works well because it's not as overwhelming as having 20 people come up and try to talk to the newcomer because they all saw a new or unfamiliar face.

Several churches want to take the message home to other members of their congregations. United Methodist Communications has recently re-written the welcoming training materials and are now offering portions of them online for free, or the entire training and planning handbook with DVD for $39.95 from the UMCom online store. A DVD with the video clips used in the training may be purchased separately for $9.95.

Download portions of the newly revised Welcoming curriculum online at http://www.umcom.org/site/c.mrLZJ9PFKmG/b.4861201/k.E4EE/Welcoming__Training.htm

Order the Welcoming Training and Planning Handbook with DVD: http://www.umcom.org/site/c.mrLZJ9PFKmG/b.4861201/k.E4EE/Welcoming__Training.htm

Order the video clips on DVD: http://secure.umcom.org/store/product/Welcoming-Ministry-Training-DVD,757,9.htm