the blog
The “Greet Your Neighbor” Blues
by kristen
July 14, 2010 | Life | 13 responses
You know that moment when you unexpectedly run into a high school acquaintance whose name you can’t remember? Or when a friend introduces you to one of their friends—then leaves you alone with that stranger?
That’s how I feel every Sunday during the “greet your neighbor” portion at church. Upon hearing the instructions to say hello to those sitting next to me, my heart begins to pound immediately. I’m positive my palms are sweaty and everyone can see the nervousness on my face. I greet one, two, maybe even three people, and we exchange names and smiles. Then, I face the front, hoping the music will begin again soon, praying no one will notice I’ve returned my hands to my pockets early or see my face glistening with anxious sweat.
Afterward, I always think, “that wasn’t so bad, really.” But my memory is short, and the dread returns, without fail, every week.
I’ve been attending one church since December, when I moved back to Kansas City, and it’s starting to feel like home. It seems time now to begin to try to make new friends, to get involved in something besides sitting in a pew once a week. But, as I’ve learned over the past four years, it’s much more difficult to make friends after college. Everyone’s busy, settled into their own lives, it seems, and my desire to develop friendships and do something at church is overshadowed by my anxiousness at opening myself up to those new relationships.
Am I the only nervous introvert whose transitions from strangers to friendships aren’t seamless? How have you struggled to join in community or helped people like me whose worst nightmares are small talk and icebreakers?
photo courtesy: nomm de photo
I identify with you – and I feel the same way and do the same things when I visit a church and they do the "greet your neighbor" thing. The problem is that I am the lead pastor at my church!
Supposedly I ranked INTP on a personality test… the "I" means I am naturally introverted… another problem for a pastor -hahaha! I am one of those people who just assume that we are on good terms with one another, so I don't need constant feedback. But, I realize others are not like me. Some people need relational affirmation.
Knowing this, it is important to me that people know I care about them. It is a great act of personal will to greet people and to show them that I actually care how they are doing, and how things are at work and home with them.
We don't do the "greet your neighbor" thing at Thrive. Sorry, fellow pastors, but I'm not sure the "greet your neighbor" thing does much good in actual relational growth. People need to walk a journey together – not just ride the same bus.
Thanks for the affirmation, Herb.
I really love my church, and I have connected with one of the pastors and learned the names of some of the people who sit near me each week. Besides communion, my favorite part of the service is always the benediction, when the congregation holds hands and sings the same song. It's during that time, not the meet and greet time, when I feel most like the body of Christ with the rest of the congregation.
By the way, I have no idea how you survive leading a church as an introvert. That, rather than the small talk and icebreakers, would be my worst nightmare.
haha – sometimes I wonder how I can do it too – I can do it by God's grace alone
seriously…
I'm always interested in what people do after church is over. Some scramble for the doors immediately while others seize the opportunity and start chatting it up with anyone around them. Perhaps people decide their own level of involvement (to whatever extent) and they are comfortable with that.
I run for the door because I'm a "one or two close friends" kind of person and prefer depth conversations over quick conversation in a mass of people. So if I have a couple close friends at church I don't need to stick around, but others might find that they need to.
Is there a rule that community building requires the most amount of people possible or is it feasible to be part of a large community while only being in "true" community with a few?
That's how I operate in friendships too. I have a handful of very close friends to whom I'm loyal to the death. I don't enter into friendships lightly or recover quickly when one falls apart. Maybe that's why doing church is difficult for me. I know most relationships there won't become friendships.
I'm with ya. I personally think the meet and greet thing is a waste of time and makes more people uncomfortable than sparking any community. To me, it's symptomatic that the church realizes that "warehouse worship" is missing something, so they throw the meet and greet thing in. I think the New Testament church was founded on going from house AND meeting in the temple. But, I'm not sure the foundation was ever supposed to be the big meeting. I like Xenos Christian fellowship in Columbus, OH, who builds their church as a network of small groups who also happen to worship together corporately. If that were the foundation with other churches, people would invite you to a small group before they'd ever tell you about the big worship gathering. That way, introverts like us could more organically build community rather than trying to find it in some big building.
I'm constantly trying to convince my dad (the pastor) to cut out the greeting portion and the pass-the-offering-plate portion (just let people know where they can leave their money – no need for a public shakedown).
I agree with John – I never felt completely integrated into a new church until I started meeting with people at a small group level. As I look back at the various places my wife and I have lived (Florida, England, Virginia and now PA), the closest friends we made, and still stay in touch with, were our small group friends.
We tried to get rid of the meet-n-greet but there was some grumbling and it occasionally makes it way into the service. We also tried the "drop you offering off at the back on you way out" but that brought strong grumblings and a huge decline in $$. So, it's back in.
I'm realizing it is incredibly difficult to transition a large group of people. Even when you explain why the transition needs to happen. It almost feel like a church plant is the only way to implement some of these "new" thoughts.
Yeah, those are great points Chad. Change is not easy and church plants are great places to try some of these different ideas. Maybe doing new things in new churches is what Jesus was talking about when he illustrated the whole new wine for new wineskins thought?
Similar grumblings in our community: I think our church did away with the meet and greet for a while, but then one visiting pastor said he thought it felt cold, so it's back on…
I think that sometimes people are more attached to "religion" than they are with the Kingdom. So, to be a Christian means to go to church on Sunday and going to church on Sunday means passing the offering plate and having hymns. Of course, I fall into that line of thinking when the cross gets removed from the worship gathering.
I suppose some people's sacred cows do not always align with others. The passing of the offering plate became an issue because we were not allowing them to serve or give. For them, the physical act of giving money in the plate during the service was their form of giving and worship as important and hearing a sermon or an altar call. For me, I'm more inclined to see giving food to the homeless guy down the street as my tangible form of worship but that doesn't mean either group is correct/wrong.
At a new church plant, or a young church (not demographically but established recently), one could implement different things and it wouldn't matter as much because you would not be removing anything from anyone but merely doing things one way and people would be attracted to that way and start coming or they wouldn't and go elsewhere.
Man, that got to be a long post.
great question. I'm not a fan of our "meet and greet" at all. We have a short and wide sanctuary and there are people everywhere and it takes like 5 minutes every Sunday. It's kind of chaotic and like it was said, the conversations are so surface level. We are an older church and change is definitely difficult.
Some churches I have been in call it "passing of the peace." I really like this language.
Instead of saying, "what's up?" you say, "the peace of Christ be with you." But then again, it's not so much what we say, but where the heart is at.
hey, came here from Herb's blog
i'm blessed with my Church which i had been attending since… hmm… 18 years (since i was 6), so most of the time i would not have trouble with saying hi to my neighbors (especially since i mostly sit with my friends…)…
yet, i echo Herb's comment re: personality types… i am INFJ and for me, it's quite hard to "go out and meet people" – i would probably scramble my brain and think of something to say if i get introduced to a stranger, yet it would wear me out… and i remember i went to another Church one time – youth group – and people (probably thinking that i am a new convert or that i am going to be coming to their church now) decided to make me feel welcome… *sigh* God bless their hearts, they were trying. yet for me, it felt suffocating. i am an observer (hence the name of my blog) and i just… am not outgoing.
some people are great with it, however. my ex youth pastor was amazing – he could find 20 topics to chat about when a new person showed up… (still can)… and me… i observe and help behind the scenes…
I am an introverted person – but I'm also the organist so while everyone "greets" – I play!