Chapter One
The Ministry of Church GreetersChurches regularly sustain the same hierarchy in Sunday
morning ministries. It is not planned that way; it just is.
Some things that happen in church on Sunday morning are
high on people's priority list; others are not. What some people
contribute to a worship service is often recognized by a congregation
as more valuable to Christian nurturing than what
others do.
THE HIERARCHY OF MINISTRIES
The following hierarchy of Sunday morning ministries is
broadly accepted:
Preaching
If anyone's name is on the permanent outdoor church sign,
it is the man or woman who usually occupies the Sunday
morning pulpit. It is not uncommon for the name of the person
preaching the sermon to appear in bold type in the church
bulletin. People may even express disappointment when they
arrive at church to find that the regular preaching minister is
absent and someone else is in the pulpit.
I attended a service one time while Arthur Calliandro was
serving as assistant minister to Norman Vincent Peale at Marble
Collegiate Church in New York City. When I arrived, I was greeted
on the front steps by Dr. Calliandro, who had been engaged in
a serious conversation with the head greeter. I overheard the
usher say to Dr. Calliandro, "I feel sorry for you." Moments later
I learned that Dr. Peale was home in bed, sick with the flu, and
the assistant pastor was to preach in his place. Like everybody
else, I was disappointed, but unlike everybody else, I considered
leaving. After the service, I was glad I had stayed, for Dr. Calliandro
preached a good sermon that ended with an absorbing story
I have remembered even after all these years.
The apostle Paul, who wrote about the "foolishness of what
was preached" (1 Corinthians 1:21), also wrote, "How, then, can
they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they
believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can
they hear without someone preaching to them?" (Romans
10:14). Most of us will agree with Paul about the paradox of
preaching and agree with the churchgoing public that preaching
is the first priority on the Sunday morning worship agenda.
Teaching
Next to preaching, Martin Luther believed that teaching
was the highest calling from God. Teaching is mentioned scores
of times in the New Testament. Jesus was called Teacher and
often taught in both Galilee and Judea. Teaching is listed
among the spiritual gifts (see Romans 12:7). On his missionary
journeys, Paul went first to the synagogues where he taught
from the Scriptures. It is fully Christian and biblical that great
numbers of people in churches everywhere are committed to
teaching-a ministry that approximates the importance of
preaching in the hierarchy of Sunday morning ministries.
The pastor who preaches without teaching (or the church
that evangelizes without nurturing the converts) is obscuring the
full purpose of the cross and is missing one of the vital ministries
of the Holy Spirit: "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and . will
guide you into all truth" (John 14:26; 16:13).
Celebrating with Music to the Glory of God
I can remember an era in the church I attended when music
consistently rivaled the impact of preaching and teaching in
Sunday worship. The just-right combination of a superb organist,
a polished professional pianist, and a nationally known
minister of music, who directed a carefully recruited choir, had
brought the ministry of our church music to an inspiring level.
There were mornings when the singing lifted the people to a
worship plateau typically reserved for the pastor's sermon. The
music consistently fulfilled the admonition of the apostle Paul,
"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly . as you sing
psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts
to God" (Colossians 3:16).
However, whether or not the music electrifies the worship
atmosphere is not the point. Churchgoing people love music.
And a church with inspiring music is likely to have a larger congregation
for the sermon than a church without inspiring
music.
Organized Friendliness of Greeters
The ministry of church greeters is a late bloomer in the
family of volunteer Christian services. It is an adjunct to preaching,
teaching, and music. But it is a ministry-a very important
one, and one that is becoming more important. Sinner and
saint understand the language of kindness equally well. When
someone is emotionally down, an ounce of kindness is worth
a pound of preaching. This is one of the reasons church greeters
have an important ministry. Anyone can pass out bulletins. But
Christian kindness is a ministry for church greeters who care
deeply about people.
THE BIBLICAL PRECEDENT
All churches need to rise to the occasion as modern-day counterparts
to the ancient doorkeepers in the house of the Lord.
Congregations without an organized greeters' ministry need to
create one. Others need to improve the ministry already in
place. This is especially true in small and midsized congregations
that have lagged behind their more aggressive counterparts
in large churches. And all churches, large and small, need
to celebrate organized friendship along with the psalmist, who
wrote, "How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! .
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than
dwell in the tents of the wicked" (Psalm 84:1, 10).
The biblical reminder of the importance of a doorkeeper
ministry comes from an ancient family chronicle. The spirit of
family pride shines through in the story of Shallum, who was
a member of the fourth generation among the "fellow gatekeepers
from his family . responsible for guarding the thresholds
of the Tent just as their fathers had been responsible for
guarding the entrance to the dwelling of the Lord" (1 Chronicles
9:19). Serving as a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord was
no small matter in those days. Neither is it now.
From the tabernacle to the temple to the synagogue to the
New Testament church, the ministry of greeting has taken on
increasing importance. For more than three hundred years, Christians
worshiped mainly in homes or house churches. Therefore
the host actually welcomed the worshipers into his own home.
In Rome, where Christians were afraid to gather openly in
homes, they appropriated the catacombs-an interlinked system
of tunnels beneath the city-for their places of worship. It
takes little imagination to visualize the personal warmth and
the authentic welcome extended to each other as one isolated
Christian after another slipped past the guards to join the
underground believers for worship.
Friendship is at the very heart of Christian brotherhood. It has
been there from the beginning. All the modern church has added
to the important atmosphere of mutual acceptance in the New
Testament church is the identification of volunteer greeters as an
organized group. Thankfully, the work of greeters in the modernday
church has been organized and institutionalized as a recognized
ministry in the family of Christian volunteers. Their much
needed gifts and graces have been honed by adequate training and
experience to raise their level of effectiveness, and the church
foyer has been designated as their place of service. In warmhearted
churches everywhere, official church greeters have become the
doers of a recognized ministry based on a biblical precedent.
THE ONE-ANOTHER MINISTRY
No assignment in the church is more one-on-one than the
ministry of greeters. The foyer is their chapel, the information
desk their pulpit, and the walk-around spaces their parish.
In contrast to the greeters at the doors of the church, pastors
welcome the congregation en masse, often from behind a
self-protecting pulpit. As some have noted, pastors stand several
steps above contradiction, while they literally look down on the
people. Teachers welcome classes in the isolation of small
rooms behind closed doors. Choir members wear robes
intended to obscure individual personalities and blend a large
number of persons into a single unit as they sing their call to
worship. Some choir members don't even look at the people as
they sing their choral welcome but keep their eyes fixed on the
director. But church greeters have a one-another ministry-face
to face, hand to hand, heart to heart with the people they
are called to serve. Church greeters in large churches may minister
in a number of parking lots or in mammoth foyers, but
their Christian service is to one customer at a time, just as it is
in the smallest church. And to make their work even more
important, church greeters are the first people others meet
when arriving at church.
On Main Street, out where people make their daily bread,
there has arisen an intense interest concerning first impressions
made on customers as they enter a place of business. The
directors of a bank's board on which I served often expressed
their concern that tellers, who are the first line of encounter
with customers, are at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of
salaries and status. In our bank, the best paid people worked
with secretaries behind closed doors in order to guard their
offices against random access and thus conserve the banker's
time and energy for important matters. But down on the main
floor where customers came and went, the ambassadors of
goodwill were people serving at entry-level jobs.
I've often wondered if people's perceptions of church
greeters in some congregations may be similarly confused. Are
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