As Christians, we want to make sure that everyone we come in contact with sees the welcoming love of God in us. We, as Christians, are also given the mandate to share our faith in every aspect of life. God is gracious to us and often gives us opportunities to utilize friendship evangelism throughout our lives. In this day and age, however, our neighbors do not expect us to show hospitality toward them, which is why they are usually pleasantly surprised when we do.

This is not the case in the church, however. People who come into the church EXPECT that they will feel the love of Christ and EXPECT to be warmly welcomed. Even first time seekers come into a church building with expectations of how they should be received. How much more tragic it is, then, when we as Christians fail to live up to expectations.

I’ve heard many stories of people coming into a new church and barely being acknowledged, or even worse, met with suspicion. Some of these people never set foot in a church again!

We only get one chance to make a first impression. We need to make sure that we share the love of Christ through our hospitality every day.

Through this newsletter and the WelcomingCommunity.com web site, we are committed to raising the awareness of the needs of “new” people. But we seek to go further. We don’t just intend to raise the issues, but are committed to providing practical, concrete tools and ideas to challenge all the people in your congregation to further develop their gift of hospitality.

To help you get an idea of how well received new families feel when they visit your church, we’re including the attached church receptivity assessment survey. The survey is an introduction to a series of free bulletin inserts called “Be the First Friend” that you can request by clicking here. The survey will hopefully provide you with new ideas you can easily implement at your church. Why not take the survey  now?

We recognize that although we have a passion for making our churches a hospitable as possible, we don’t have all the answers. We hope that this newsletter and our web site will be a forum for sharing. Our web site will soon be ready to accept your ideas, stories and inform us of resources that you find to be helpful. We would love to publish your ideas!