I visit different churches every chance I get to pick up ideas, to challenge my own church culture biases, and to remember what it's like to be a newcomer. Last Sunday I remembered what it's like to be a newcomer more vividly than I ever want to again. If this church was trying as hard as they could to make a newcomer feel unwelcome, they scored in gold. 

I drove in with my four kids (my wife was singing at our home church) and parked in the "visitor" parking. I put visitor in quotes because you'd think they'd treat you with some kind of warmth and openness for the simple reason that you are new. But the the visitor parking turned out to be more of a joke. 

I walked up to the welcome center in the lobby and asked if they could show me where to send my kids for Sunday school. The lady was warm and kind, but quite confused about where to send the kids. She kept having to look at a sheet to find out where they go. Finally, someone else showed her where to send them. I dropped them off and asked if they had an adult Sunday school. Again, she perused her sheet and started reading them off. I picked the "couples with young children" class and she pointed at a separate building. It would have been nice if she had escorted me there and introduced me to the class leaders. I do believe she was sincere and genuinely loves people. But I'm finding that most churches have no idea how to treat newcomers. 

I trudged across the lot to the building and the moment I opened the door, everyone went quiet. Looking at me or not, everyone felt insanely conscious of the presence of a visitor. That'll make you feel natural. I sat down in the big cirle of about 30 chairs and decided to see what happened next. The guy to my right was very kind and asked me where I was from. That was the kindest gesture I had been shown so far.

Someone pointed out coffee and cookies and said, “You can go get some if you want.” I later thought, “That’s nice. But it’d be so much warmer to bring the tray over and ask, ‘May I pour you some coffee?’ then to send me to a lonely table."

The class leader asked everyone to introduce themselves. As the introductions went around the circle I noticed that every person looked at me as they spoke. I quickly realized that I was the only newcomer and that they were doing this for me. This made me feel very awkward. I've grown up in church, work in a church, and will probably die in a church, yet this made me nervous. I tried to imagine how a non-churched visitor or an unbeliever would feel.

I met a few people after the class and one particular fellow was extremely kind and offered to walk with me to the main building. Once I entered the building, other than the designated greeter, not a soul said a word to me. I passed by several deacon guys but they avoided eye contact as if looking at me would give them a disease. I sat down in the auditorium and noticed clusters of people all over talking in groups.

At the end of the service, the worship pastor was just about to close when he said, "Is there anything I'm missing?" Someone from the audience shouted, "Newcomers." 

"Oh yea," said the worship pastor. "If you are a newcomer I hope you feel very welcome here." I felt like an afterthought. 

After the service I found my two youngest children but know one told me that my two oldest would be sent to a different room than the one I dropped them off in. This resulted in a fifteen minute search, scouring the building for my two oldest kids (9 and 7 years). Two men ended up joining the search and finally we found them. By that time most of the people had left.

In all honesty, visiting this church was depressing. I can't imagine any visitor wanting to come back. Did they preach the Word? They did. But when one preaches the Word but treats you like an outsider, what kind of message does that send? 

Looking back, I'm sure that most of those people are sincere, Christ-loving, people who want to love visitors. But they don't know how. Be default, we magnet to people we feel comfortable with. But this is not love. This is self-centered. If newcomers are going to stumble over anything in my church, the only thing I want them stumbling over is Jesus Christ. God forbid that our awkward approach, lack of planning, or general coldness toward visitors make us the stumbling block so that they never even get to encounter the real Jesus!

We should bend over backward to make new people feel as loved, welcomed, and comfortable as possible. Someone will stand up with Bible in hand and shout back, "But unbelievers shouldn’t feel comfortable if the Word is being preached. We shouldn't cater God's timeless Word to visitors preferences!" Yes, the Bible speaks frankly about sin and so should we. But is loving someone biblical or not? No, we should never sacrifice the doctrines of repentance, hell, and sin on the altar of fear of offending someone. But preaching God's Word is no excuse for treating people like an afterthought! If we really do believe this Word we preach, let us make visitors a priority, our preferences secondary. We should make ourselves uncomfortable to make newcomers feel loved and welcome. I don't want to be the reason someone refuses to come back. Let us not eclipse Jesus by our arrogance, coldness, and lack of strategy in reaching newcomers!

I often tell our leadership team in the college ministry I lead: What we want doesn't matter. It's totally irrelevant. All that matters is what the new people need.