Those Trespassing Visitors

Had lunch with my Dad today. That was nice. He told me about the reception they've gotten at two churches they've been attending. This is always comedic stuff. When Mom and Dad took a year off from the ministry in the early 1980s, after ten years at their first church, they visited a lot of different churches and were always amused by the timidity of churchgoers when it comes to greeting visitors. They would often be ignored. Once, if I remember right, they sat down in a pew and some other people filed into the pew, and stacked up hymnals and Bibles between them, to create a barrier between them and these unknown people who had crashed their pew.

They've been attending one church in Fort Wayne fairly regularly for months, but still, nobody talks to them. The pastor greeted someone on either side of them, but ignored them. Mom and Dad find this intensely amusing.

At another church, Dad kindly (I'm assuming) refused the offer of a visitor badge. I can't believe any churches are still giving out visitor badges. That's so old school. The second time they visited, when it came to signing the guest register, Dad signed it, "Mr. and Mrs. Invisible," and gave their real address. He's still waiting on a letter sent to Mr. and Mrs. Invisible.

I've seen some of this kind of behavior in United Brethren churches. I remember one church in Ohio where I was pretty much ignored by the 100+ people attending, even when I went to Sunday school. Some years ago, when I attended the largest church in our denomination, I obviously took somebody's regular pew, because this older couple scooted in beside me and the lady shot me a highly disapproving look which told me I was trespassing. Inside, I guffawed.

Posted on February 7, 2007 09:01 PM|

Comments

you terrify me. what if it is our church they are visiting? what if I'm the one that has ignored them? I do know that we did have the "my seat" syndrome, but we addressed that from the pulpit...which helped.

i'm off to check our visitor lists.

Posted by: jon | February 7, 2007 09:22 PM

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