I wonder what you think of on a Sunday after the benediction? You have received by faith God’s declaration of blessing, but then what?
“The lunch needs to be put on, work is looming on Monday, the children are driving me mad, what was that preacher on about . . .”
Occasionally, I preach in churches where there is a stillness and silence after the benediction. No one speaks for a time, and there is a slight awkwardness as the minister makes his way to the back before the piano or organ plays. I used to think that this was because of the powerful sermon I preached, but it just turns out that this is their pattern. No one really knows when to move, and it becomes a good thing because people take time to pray and reflect on what they have heard. However, I don’t think it is mandated in the Bible that we have a period of silence after the benediction. After the benediction, the pronouncement of God’s blessing upon His people, there is normally the joy of people talking together and children racing for biscuits.
We all know that it is easy for people to slip out of church quietly, to want to come to church anonymously, and to get into the habit of not really engaging with anyone—coming, sitting, hearing, and consuming but not having meaningful contact with anyone in the church. It is like when we are in the supermarket and have the choice of the self-service checkout or going to the till with a real-life human being on it. Many of us will choose the non-human option and disappear from the shop as quickly as possible. There is something in us that wants to remain anonymous.
I want to encourage us to use the time immediately after the service to be thinking of others. For the last year or so, our church has had an unusual number of visitors. They have come for all sorts of diverse reasons. Some have moved into the area and decided to come to church, whereas others have come in the most seemingly random ways. I’m always amazed and humbled as to how and why people come to us. It is often completely independent of our efforts in seeking to reach out. God teaches us the lesson again and again that He is the church builder.
This is one of the reasons why those who volunteer to welcome and greet visitors have such an important ministry. Each week we pray for people to come to church, and we are genuinely pleased when they do. Surely it is a good thing to express that to them.
I am not talking about what it is like when we go into shops and are greeted with: “How’s it going? Let me know if I can help you.” I’m also not talking about what I consider to be even worse: when they compliment you and catch you off guard by saying, “Nice hat.”
We want people to come to know God as their Father. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and that He is calling out people from every tribe and tongue and nation (Rev. 7:9). All sorts of people from all sorts of places are being brought into the family of God—people who are like me and people who are very unlike me. So, when it comes to Christ’s church, I am to be welcoming of all.
There is something missing about a church where everyone is exactly the same. It is one of the tragedies of London churches that there are different services for different types of people—young families gather in the morning, older families with teens who like to play sports on Sunday mornings have their own service in the late afternoon, and twenty- and thirty-somethings look for love in services on Sunday nights. The church gets segregated, and people never actually get to meet one another or be in one another’s homes. The true family of God will be and must be diverse, so it is important that we welcome all sorts of people to our church and intentionally take the time to meet them.
We all have different personalities. Some of us are more outgoing than others, and most of us find speaking to people we don’t know to be slightly unnerving. Even our language of calling people we don’t know “strangers” encapsulates this. There is something very powerful when someone quiet, or someone speaking in their second language, nervously welcomes someone else.
The term social anxiety is being used more and more in our culture. Covid-19 and online life brought it to the fore, and yet the Bible envisages our gatherings to be warm in affection, times where we express joy in God and in one another. Five times the New Testament tells us to greet one another with a holy kiss (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14). Culturally, of course, this will look different for most of us today.
Let me encourage you, at the end of your church service, to look around at the people sitting next to you, or behind you, or in front of you. Express to them that it’s good to see them, and if you’ve not met them before, introduce yourself. It is awkward, I know, but there is something powerful about greeting one another. God has brought them to church, and He could use you in bringing them into His family.
For those of us in the church, we all need encouragement. Paul, in his letters, expresses thankfulness for his brothers and sisters. Even saying how thankful we are for one another is a powerful spur to keep going in the Christian life.
If you are reading this and are in the habit of running away after church, can I plead with you to stop running? Allowing yourself to know and be known is part of the Christian life.
Of course, all of this is grounded in a welcoming God—a God who welcomes sinners, who runs to the prodigal son, and who rejoices in sinners returning home. He is a friend of sinners. This is a God who, in the person of His Son, calls us to Himself.
When we welcome and greet one another, we are reflecting the character of the Lord.