Hospitality
Below are instructions for Sunday volunteers plus information about why workshop training is so important to our mission of welcoming and sharing with newcomers.
Instructions for Sunday Morning Volunteers
Please click on the following links to download the files to your computer.
About the Shared Hospitality Workshop
from Karen Dientsbier, Membership Director
Why do we offer training to our new members and others at a Shared Hospitality workshop? The idea behind offering the workshop is so that we can learn how to be welcoming and friendly to our visitors. Remember how important it was to you when you first arrived at church – smiling faces welcoming you and your family into this new space? This kind of a workshop is not new to congregations. We have offered it for several years so that our members feel comfortable welcoming the stranger. It is so that “the stranger” will want to return to learn more about us. It has been proven both at this church and other congregations that if a visitor feels welcomed and comfortable then they will return to learn more about the congregation. Our UU congregations for many years have had the opportunity to take training so that members and friends feel comfortable greeting and welcoming the stranger. The concept of “welcoming the stranger” goes back far into our past. As our Christian roots tell us, Jesus welcomed the stranger as one of his own when he was preaching and in his daily life. Wasn’t this how he acquired his disciples and other converts to Christianity? I am certain that we can find similar stories about the great Buddha and other holy men. We need to make this part of our shared ministry to our guests.
Many of our members tend to be introspective individuals, and by offering training to welcome our guests on Sunday mornings we hope that even those who feel most introspective will feel more empowered to welcome our guests with confidence.
I hope that as you welcome our strangers to church you will do it in a way that you would welcome someone entering your own home.
As you may know from reading some of the newsletters I have said time and again that some of our visitors tell me and others too that we are the most welcoming congregation they have ever visited. This does make them feel good, and they return..
