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When
my wife and I visited an African-American church one Sunday, we didn’t know you had to arrive at least
a half-hour early to get a seat. By the time we got there, people were being
ushered into an overflow auditorium with closed-circuit TV. But since we
were visitors, ushers would have none of that with us. Instead, they squeezed
us into the last pew of the sanctuary.
The two women seated on either side of us were genuinely friendly, putting us at ease in a strange setting. Since the printed order of worship didn’t exactly track with what was actually happening, they helped us to know what was going on and where we were in the order of worship.
I had to wonder: would my mostly white congregation be as welcoming of people of color as these dear people were of us? The conclusion I came to is yes, we can be as warm and welcoming toward visitors—no matter their background—as those African-American Christians were toward us that Sunday. Whether we can effectively incorporate them into the life and the leadership of our congregation is another matter.
The best apprenticeship in hospitality happens
when we’re thrust into settings where all
the usual markers are absent, where no one
knows us and where all our credentials and
accomplishments mean nothing.
To be good hosts, I believe, we first need to learn to be good guests. We must experience situations where we are not in control and are dependent on the kindness of strangers, as we were that Sunday morning.
The best apprenticeship in hospitality happens when we’re thrust into settings where all the usual markers are absent, where no one knows us and where all our credentials and accomplishments mean nothing. If no one knows you, who are you? To be in such a place can be quite disorienting. But it is from that place that we can see our own context in a new way, and perhaps imagine better what total strangers experience when they enter our space.
Regrettably, North American culture is not African man who had been studying in Toronto two years before being in someone’s home. And then it was a Mennonite family who invited him into their home.
In Mennonite circles I’ve noticed something different about those who have had significant experiences overseas or in other cross-cultural settings. It seems to me that these are often the ones who are most apt to reach out to the “foreigners” who show up at church and to invite them home for dinner. They are the ones most likely to host guest speakers from other countries in their home. They know what it feels like to be a guest in an unfamiliar place.
Even without having been immersed in a cross-cultural setting, we can try to put ourselves in the place of visitors. Last summer my congregation’s hospitality committee conducted such an experiment. They tried to imagine what every aspect of our congregational life would look like from the vantage point of a stranger. And then they listed ways we could be more welcoming of visitors and passed the list along to the appropriate committees.
One idea was to provide printed information on all the Sunday school options with a map on how to get there. Just getting around a church building can itself be a challenge to visitors. In my own congregation, for instance, the street-side entrance is not the main one and is seldom used by regular attenders. The main entrance is by the parking lot.
Imagining how first-time visitors experience one’s own congregation is an exercise all congregational leaders should engage in from time to time. You might be surprised at what you see for the first time in your familiar setting!
Richard A. Kauffman