In my early thirties, while working
full time as the coordinator of pastoral services in a mental health facility
in South Carolina, I was invited to become a “stringer” for The Greenville News. The newspaper had a
statewide circulation but needed someone in the Orangeburg area to write about
emerging trends in the local culture. I had done some writing for areal
newspapers on subjects related to faith and mental health so I at least knew what
a byline was. Orangeburg and its environs had long been an agricultural
community but the local culture was changing fast. A new mall had been opened,
a new regional hospital was in the works, and some of the old, established
political leadership was being replaced by professional city managers,
municipal planners, and whip smart young attorneys from other places. The local
newspaper had hired an editor from north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Old timers with tags on their trucks that read
“Fergit, Hell,” met at the Calhoun Restaurant and pined for the good old days before
all those outsiders moved to town.
My first assignment from my editor
was to write a story about the effect of the new mall on the downtown stores
that had lined Broad Street for the past hundred years. I dutifully interviewed
the mall manager, downtown store owners, customers on the street and in the
mall. My editor said that if I provided photographs, I got paid an extra fifty
bucks so I shot a wide angle photograph of Broad Street around one o’clock on a
Wednesday afternoon. The parking spaces that lined the streets were mostly
empty. Few cars, no people, and the downtown business district looked dead.
However, the story I wrote painted a different situation. Everybody agreed that
the mall had not cut into the downtown stores’ business. Most of the stores in
the mall were chain merchandisers and fast food places. If you needed a Stihl
chainsaw, you still went to the Ace Hardware on Broad. Churchgoers looking for Sunday
lunch still went to Berry’s on-the-Hill Restaurant downtown. If you were
shopping for an engagement ring or a high school class pin, you went to Andrae’s
Jewelers on the upper end of Broad. Mostly, storeowners liked that there was
more variety which encouraged more shopping. But the photograph spoke volumes more
than the few hundred words in my article. It showed a vacant, dead looking
downtown. I had captured it in a slow moment. I hadn’t meant for it to convey
anything but the truth but it did. The photograph ran with my article and the
phones started ringing off the hook. My good friend, Jim Cherry, director of
the Chamber of Commerce, suggested that I not show my face in any of those
downtown stores for a while. The owners complained to him that I had portrayed
the downtown business district as dead. My journalism career was not off to a
good start.
Sunday morning worship in any
church is a lot like a snapshot. If you visit on the wrong Sunday or the wrong
service, you might not get a positive impression of what’s going in the life of
the congregation. If you see pews full of old graybeards and no children, it’s
not likely a church you where you want to bring your children. If the lighting
is poor and the temperature ten degrees off comfortable, you may check out the
church down the road. If worshippers are stony-faced and do not welcome you,
what does that say about the church’s willingness to be in ministry to a diverse
world? A cold reception always trumps good preaching, the organist’s skill, or
how many of your favorite hymns the congregation sings.
Last Sunday, I greeted a visitor,
an African American gentleman. He lives in the neighborhood. I had to wait a
moment to meet him because other people were welcoming him. He told me that he
had driven by several times on Sunday but never saw many cars in the parking
lot. He wondered if much was going on in our church. He decided to come inside
and take a closer look. I explained to him that our larger lot where a lot of
people parked was on the back side of the church and not visible from the
street so I was glad that he decided to come inside the building.
I did not get the chance to talk
with him after worship so I don’t know what sort of overall impression we made.
People come to church for all kinds of reasons but it all boils down to one
thing: they are looking for some experience of God.
Next time you see someone new to
the congregation, remember that Jesus welcomed the stranger. Greet them in the
name of Jesus and say, “Welcome to the kingdom of God.” That’s what Jesus would
do. Hospitality on the part of Christ’s followers was the driving force behind
the growth of the early church. It is still a defining feature of growing churches
today.
