We Go to our Mailbox (and our Inbox)

How churches respond to visitors
We don’t get much mail. Being on the road last year without a physical address seemed to discourage all but the most persistent junk mail from catching up with us. (Some still found us. It’s rather sad when we've sent a small amount to a charity that more than two years later, they’ve spent at least that much on requests for more money. We tossed those letters without opening, but one organization has followed us to three addresses, with no response on our part.)  

But we do get mail from churches. We go to a new church almost every week (though we didn’t this week, just went to the same one we attend most weeks), and MIndy faithfully fills out the response cards. Even though some churches never get around to mentioning where visitors can register their attendance, Mindy tracks it down if she can. Some churches ask visitors to  stand, even to introduce themselves. More than one church had ushers who handed us a card and pen and watched as we filled it.

Last year we didn’t have a physical address, only email, but this year we have both, and we often fill out both kinds of addresses. Strangely, some churches don’t offer a choice of which you’d prefer. They have their own preferences. We recently visited a church that announced they’d send a gift to our home. It turned out to be a gift certificate for a free burger (which could have probably been sent by email just as easily and more economically, though of course we're grateful for free food!).

It’s a very good thing for churches to reach out to visitors. It’s definitely worthwhile to thank visitors for coming and even better to offer opportunities for people to become involved if they choose. But there are some things we think could be improved.

For instance, Mindy usually fills out the cards, and she usually writes, “Dean and Mindy Anderson” because, you know, those are our names and she figures one registration card is enough. A number of times, we’ve gotten letters or emails addressed to “Dean” alone. Would they have been addressed to Mindy if she’d put “Mindy and Dean Anderson,” or was unthinking sexism at work?  It seems to us that if two names are on the card, two names should be on the letter.

Another occasional problem with giving an email address has been those churches that never stop sending emails. Like the charity that found us after every move, some churches don’t manage to ever take us off their mailing lists, even after we ask.

Sometimes those letters come with an assumption that the receiver is already excited about and committed to the church. “Now that you’re part of our family” is the tone -- even when we just visited once. I guess the next step after one visit is membership...and probably a place on one of their boards.

But any of this is preferable to churches that don’t follow through at all (or worse yet, make no effort to know who's at church on any given Sunday). A visitor who comes as a stranger and remains a stranger -- unless that's their choice -- indicates the church is not doing what the church is called to do, to be Christ’s representative to the world.

So those letters, whether electronic or snail, are good things. Even better is a greeting from a person in person that can lead to a real relationship, like some of those we've found since the start of this project.