Spirituality

New Church?

by Jaynee

So I think we’ve found our new church. We went yesterday for the third time and I have to say that everyone is friendly, the music is great, the preaching is good and the church is active in the community. The only downside? We haven’t actually met the pastor yet. Now if it was a large church (300+ being “large” to us) then I could see how it would take a while to meet the pastor. However, this church is only at 200 people and what disturbed me the most was that yesterday when I was taking CootieGirl and CootieBoy to the nursery room the pastor walked right by me, made eye contact and smiled, and then kept on walking. No hellos, no introductions, no good mornings. Then two seconds later I heard him greet someone behind me. I was very surprised by that and a little put off.

I’ll give the guy the benefit of the doubt – we got there late and had only five minutes until the service was supposed to start, but we’ve noticed that this church, when it says that service starts at 10:30 a.m., they really mean 10:40 a.m. So at 10:25 a.m. this pastor had plenty of time to shake my hand, welcome me to the church and invite me to stay for the lunch they had afterwards.

Regardless of this, I know we like the church and will continue to attend. We did stay for the lunch afterwards (apparently they do a church-wide lunch every last Sunday of the month) and met a few nice people, and Denis asked how to get on the list for making food for the monthly lunches. So I think this is “The Church” for us, but next week that pastor had better say hello to Denis or me. As I said, if the church were larger I could see how he might not be sure whether I was new or not, but this church is the same size as our old church and as far as I know our NoNJ pastor KNEW whether someone was a visitor or not and would always take the time to greet them and welcome them if he had the opportunity – even if the service was starting in five minutes.

Movie: 16 Blocks

Movie: Spanglish

07 comments on “New Church?”

  • denis , Direct link to comment

    Just throwing this out there, but what if we said hello to him first? Also, if you remember he said two weeks ago that the worst time to have a conversation with him about anything was before the service since he is focused in what he will be preaching and what you say to him will go in one ear and out the other.

    I agree that it would be nice if he would greet us at some point. Pastor Chris was very good at that. I guess not all pastors are good at everything.

    Put the flag down.

  • Dad , Direct link to comment

    I’m with Denis. Chris was unique in that he could know and remember everybody yet be prepared to preach in 2 minutes. I’d say introduce yourself after service and tell him you’d like to get to know him better.

  • Tracy , Direct link to comment

    Uhm I don’t want to give away Pastor Chris’s secrets but he really is horrible at remebering peoples names. He had to work really hard at remembering everyone’s name. Also as a staff we sat down every Monday and went through the list as to who was who and who went with who. So he is not really great at remembering people, he constantly forgot mine and Casey’s name and I think he forgot CootieGirl’s name at CootieBoy’s baby dedication. But Pastor Chris would have said hi to you in the hall no matter who you were!

  • Jaynee , Direct link to comment

    Tracy – that’s hilarious! And the baby dedication I remember is when he kept calling Makenna “CootieGirl” during her dedication because he didn’t change out the name on his notes.

    My problem isn’t about remembering names with the SC pastor – I’m horrible with remembering names as well. It’s that the guy didn’t even GREET me, but did greet the person five steps behind me. That’s my issue.

  • Liz , Direct link to comment

    Hi Jaynee!

    Looks like you guys are settling in – YAY! – hope all goes well and that you’ve found your new church, indeed.

    Take care!

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