Last week, Chris introduced a great new blog series on making people feel welcome at our meetings. As I was reflecting on what to share with you, I thought I would ask some of my students and fellow leaders what they thought and what has impacted them the most on this topic and share some of their insight.
I’m convinced that God wired my wife, Kimmy, with the passion and desire to make everybody she comes in contact with feel welcome and accepted. In other words, this area is an obvious strength of hers, and something that she makes a priority, especially at our college ministry meetings. When asked what she thought on the topic, she shared, “Finding common interests is a great way (to make people feel welcome)! I love asking new people what their majors are and then once I know I try to find some way to relate to them, whether it’s talking about a class I took or a favorite professor within that field. Relating is key!”
Aly, a student leader, is wired with the same passion. She makes meeting people a priority at our large group meetings. She shared that she thinks one of the keys to making people feel welcome is to do so right away, by having greeters at the entry door. At our large group meetings we have at least one person at the door every week with an email signup list for newcomers, greeting everyone with some combination of a smile, a high five, and a hug. Aly went on to say how she thinks making somebody feel welcome should be a practice even outside of our large group meetings. “I know from my own experience that it makes a world of difference when someone I met briefly in a meeting recognized me later on the next day, and took the time to come up and say hi, remembered my name, and was genuinely interested in how I was doing.”
Alex, our worship leader chimed in, “I think it’s good to look around at a BASIC meeting and find one person you don’t know and talk to them and ask them to sit with you, making them feel welcome and building a relationship.” Another practical tip from Rakesh, a student leader, is the use of ice breaker games. For a couple of semesters, we’ve had students who showed up every week with a new game to play to get to know each other as part of our large group meeting. These have worked great to allow students to get to know most of the other students in the room.
Jay, an upcoming worship leader added, “I feel like there are plenty of clubs you can join where people don’t recognize that you’re there, while at BASIC, you can’t attend a meeting without someone introducing themselves to you or saying hi or something!” Jay recognized something important here. You are called to be set apart on your campus, with the power and love of God. If you are doing things that every other club on campus is doing, another club is probably doing it better than you. Focus on your mission on campus, and how making others feel welcome is an extension of that.
There’s one outstanding common thread among these responses; making people feel welcome takes effort. It never happens passively. Our sin is only concerned with our own selfish needs and staying comfortable. Making another person feel welcome is a complete rejection of our sinful nature and a turn toward Jesus, who gave His life for you and I to be welcomed and accepted into the greatest large group meeting creation will ever know; the Kingdom of God.