Warming Welcoming

After a few years away from a Bible study I had gone to before, I was warmly welcomed back with hugs, smiles and many saying, “It’s so good to see you.” When you are greeted with warm cookies and coffee as you check into a hotel, it makes you feel special and appreciated. These are the things you remember and make you want to go back. I want every person coming into our church to have that same feeling of being warmly welcomed, special and appreciated. It would be so nice to see people greeting each other, helping young moms with children and helping those with walkers or wheelchairs. I desire a place where visitors can go to get information and a gift to welcome them to our church.

“I want every person coming into our church to have that same feeling of being warmly welcomed, special and appreciated.”

I am hoping our Welcome Center will become that place. A place where people are warmly greeted, helped, shown where to go and, of course, get information. It will be a place where you can sign up for events, small groups, serving within and outside the church. A place where your questions will get answered and you feel cared for and appreciated. This cannot be done with just one person; we need a team of people to help staff the welcome center on Sundays and Wednesdays. We need warm, friendly, patient people ready to serve others, answer questions and walk people to where they need to go. People who can be trained to sign others up online, to give out information about the church, know how to get to places within the church and have a general idea of our church history. We need people to reflect Christ to those they help, serving them as Christ served us.

I hope the welcome center will become a hub of activity on Wednesdays and Sundays, where our members and visitors have a place to get their questions answered, learn about all the wonderful things happening here, or just have a place to get connected. Please be patient as we get the welcome center up and running; we’ll have to see what works and doesn’t work. As we begin gathering a team, pray that we have insight into the needs of our members and of our visitors so that we can be helpful to all who enter our church.

If you are at all interested in being a part of the welcome team, please let me know. The more people trained to help, the better it will work for everyone. Please contact me at kathryn@firstlu.org, call me at church 783-2236, or talk to me between or after worship.