Greet and Grow

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.  Colossians 1:9-10

We have one of those warm friendly churches. The first week we visited the greeters were veterans. They looked at our faces and knew we were not regulars. We received the warmest greeting! When we showed up the second week, they remembered us and seemed truly happy that we were returning for a second visit.

I do not know the numbers but over the last several weeks I have noticed many new faces on Sunday mornings at our worship services. I don’t have any idea which ones the Lord will place there for the long run but I do know that when there are new people, especially if they are new Christians, they need to see the love of Christ in the people they meet. More importantly, they need to see if the church is a place where their faith will find spiritual food to grow on and their gifts used to serve the Lord.

Things have calmed down for us, we’re just regular members now,  but we remember the kindness that was extended to us in those first few weeks. It is much easier to return to a place where people seem happy to see you than it is to show up at a place where it really doesn’t  matter to anyone whether you come or not.

The more important things I mentioned, being fed from the a Word of God and using your gifts to serve God, are  far more crucial to a person who loves the Lord than how well-received they feel. In 1 Corinthians 3:2 Paul tells the Corinthians, “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready.”

The thing that strikes me about this is that Paul knew what these believers needed to hear. He had to have spent enough time with them to get a handle on where they were spiritually.  Is this an example that today’s church needs to follow?

As I work with women I want to address new women coming into the church. Because my burden is for mentoring of women, I eagerly look to how women visitors are welcomed.  Warm greetings are (and should be) the norm but are we letting them know how to get engaged with other women?  Are there plans in place to get the information about Bible Studies and fellowship opportunities to these women?

Often I think we have a “well it’s in the bulletin, why does someone have to tell her” attitude. A woman with no real connection may find it awkward to just show up at a Bible Study where everyone knows each other. She may be curious about the ages of the women who attend or the topics being studied. An invitation would open that conversation so her questions get answered.

I often think, as an “older woman,” about Titus 2:3-5 that instruct us to teach the younger women. “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” How many of us are obeying this instruction? More importantly, how do we obey it?

When I think about Jesus’ telling us to go and make disciples of the all the nations (Matthew 28:19), I recognize that means right at home as well as all the other nations! Are we practicing in our churches what we preach we are to do for the rest of the world?

We can start by inviting new people at the church, and new believers  from anywhere, to join us in studying the scriptures. This can be in a class or one on one if that is more comfortable for the one we will disciple. We can offer to mentor a new Christian so that she can get the milk needed to grow into a mature Christian who craves solid spiritual food.  This can be done over coffee in our own kitchens, at fellowship times in the church, at the back of the sanctuary on Sunday mornings, or any other time we arrange to get together.

The point is that we have to be intentional about discipleship, about welcoming people into the fellowship of believers so that they want to stay, and about the direction of our conversations. I often wonder how many people make a profession of faith after hearing the gospel but fall away from the church because we let them flounder until they leave.

As older women we often think that the invitations to younger women need to come from younger women. That is not what the Bible says. Whether the women in our congregations are new or have been there for several years, if they are younger, we, the older women, are the ones assigned the duty of teaching and training them!

The greeters do their jobs – now it’s time for us older women to step up and do ours!