The pastor stopped me on the way out of church this morning. As I shook his hand, he took my elbow with his other hand, and said, "I'm so, so sorry that I have neglected you! Can we meet some afternoon or evening this week?"
By "neglected", he meant that he hasn't approached me about joining the church. I am accustomed to churches having a pastor's class, or a membership class, or something of that nature, and either interested parties sign up on their own, or someone asks them if they'd be interested.
I am inclined to go ahead and join this body, but I was kind of waiting around for...whatever I assumed was protocol. In answer to a casual inquiry, I was told last week that there is no formal protocol. But this information was accompanied by the question, "You mean no one's checked on you since you've been here? For 10 weeks?"
Uh, no... Were they supposed to? Evidently this is a sore point amongst some of the folks, here. Whose job is it to follow up with newcomers? IS it the pastor? If it's NOT solely the pastor's job, then who delegates, and to whom? Should people have to ASK to be told more about the church, or shouldn't someone offer? In the preacher's defense, he did call me the week after we first attended, but I guess the issue is that there was no follow-up later to see how we were doing, settling in, if we needed anything, had we found classes, etc...
Anyway, the fact that a new family had been thus neglected was pointedly brought to the pastor's attention this past week, with some degree of "what are you going to do about this?" and it would seem that he is acting on that challenge. I'm to call the church office tomorrow and set up a time that I can meet with him.
I have a few questions. I'm used to churches carefully outlining "What We Believe", and then a person decides if they can spiritually align themselves with that doctrine. This will be the first time that I have had to conduct an "interview", if you will, with a church and what it stands for. I already know that this congregation stands for all the right stuff; it's not about that. But I want to feel like someone within the corporate entity understands where I'm coming from, and vice versa. Traditionally, that should be the pastor.
I don't think there are any "deal breakers" to be had, but I'm interested in finding out how the land lays on a few issues, just for the sake of argument. For example, I was in a church once before that I was surprised to learn had drawn a line in the sand over something that I simply could not agree with. It didn't make me want to leave the church, but I knew that I would have to agree to disagree on that matter.
I believe in God's people contributing their time, talents, and treasure to the local ministry, and I intend to do so. I just want to get some "gee-whiz" information on this body's belief system before I sign on.
By "neglected", he meant that he hasn't approached me about joining the church. I am accustomed to churches having a pastor's class, or a membership class, or something of that nature, and either interested parties sign up on their own, or someone asks them if they'd be interested.
I am inclined to go ahead and join this body, but I was kind of waiting around for...whatever I assumed was protocol. In answer to a casual inquiry, I was told last week that there is no formal protocol. But this information was accompanied by the question, "You mean no one's checked on you since you've been here? For 10 weeks?"
Uh, no... Were they supposed to? Evidently this is a sore point amongst some of the folks, here. Whose job is it to follow up with newcomers? IS it the pastor? If it's NOT solely the pastor's job, then who delegates, and to whom? Should people have to ASK to be told more about the church, or shouldn't someone offer? In the preacher's defense, he did call me the week after we first attended, but I guess the issue is that there was no follow-up later to see how we were doing, settling in, if we needed anything, had we found classes, etc...
Anyway, the fact that a new family had been thus neglected was pointedly brought to the pastor's attention this past week, with some degree of "what are you going to do about this?" and it would seem that he is acting on that challenge. I'm to call the church office tomorrow and set up a time that I can meet with him.
I have a few questions. I'm used to churches carefully outlining "What We Believe", and then a person decides if they can spiritually align themselves with that doctrine. This will be the first time that I have had to conduct an "interview", if you will, with a church and what it stands for. I already know that this congregation stands for all the right stuff; it's not about that. But I want to feel like someone within the corporate entity understands where I'm coming from, and vice versa. Traditionally, that should be the pastor.
I don't think there are any "deal breakers" to be had, but I'm interested in finding out how the land lays on a few issues, just for the sake of argument. For example, I was in a church once before that I was surprised to learn had drawn a line in the sand over something that I simply could not agree with. It didn't make me want to leave the church, but I knew that I would have to agree to disagree on that matter.
I believe in God's people contributing their time, talents, and treasure to the local ministry, and I intend to do so. I just want to get some "gee-whiz" information on this body's belief system before I sign on.
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