Welcoming people to church is a very important part of our ministry. It can be a very nerve-wracking thing to come to a strange church, let alone if no-one comes and talks to you. Failure to warmly welcome can put people off in the blink of an eye. The flip-side of this, of course, is that good welcoming does wonders. If people have a good experience at the door of the church, they are probably more likely to have a good experience in it. Welcoming is a profoundly Christian thing to do because God, in Christ, has welcomed us all into his family. There is no one who does not deserve to be warmly received when they come to church.
All the handouts will be in the dispatch box for your congregation, with a blue manifest sheet that lists the contents – do look at this sheet!
The welcomers' job begins before people start arriving for the service. At this point the things to do are:
a printed service sheet with Church pic on the front
sometimes, extra leaflets or brochures – these will be mentioned on the manifest sheet
Stay on the door for at least ten minutes after the service has started
After this, it is good for one welcomer to stay near the back pew so that they can greet anyone who happens to wander in during the service.
In the last song (or designated by song/service leader) the welcomers are to pass around the offertory bags.After the bags have been passed back through the congregation, they are taken to the front and placed on the table.
The last task is to do a quick clean up of the pews after the service gathering service sheets and other handouts ready to be reused or recyced as necessary.
Any lost property can be placed in the Lost Property cupboard under the book stall.