Thoughts about Greeting Time at Church

I posted a poll on my Facebook page about church greeting times. It got a pretty good reaction and prompted some interesting conversations. I’m not going to rehash all of the conversations we had on Facebook here, but I do want to make a few observations about it based on the question. 

Here’s the poll:

 

 

Three Thoughts:

1. The vote was practically split 50/50. If this is true, it means that half of the people in church probably feel the same way you do about this, and half of them probably don’t. If you love it, understand that there’s 50% who probably hate it. If you hate it, there’s probably 50% who love it. Good thing it’s not about you (or me). 

2. Age and demographic doesn’t really have much to do with it. It was split down the line, and it wasn’t all young people who hate it or all older people who hate it (or love it). This tells me, again, that this isn’t about ages or demographic. It’s an opinion, and it’s not even generational. 

3. Some of the people who voted that they DON’T like the greeting time are pastors. I’ll let you draw your conclusions about that one. 

There’s a lot we could say about church greeting time. I’m not sure we can judge a church’s “friendliness” on how the greeting time goes.

This summer we’ve been experimenting a little with that time at our church. We’ve given more time, tried to guide the discussion by giving talking points, and other things. It’s not perfect, and not everyone likes it. But some people have really started connecting better because of the things we’re doing. Others might think it’s the worst thing ever.

I don’t know. We’re just trying to listen to people, follow what we think God is showing us to do, and connecting with each other along the way.