The Power of Invitation and Welcome

During the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Metro Association Ruth Garwood and Ruby Wilson gave us first-hand experiences with:

Connecting with persons who start out as "strangers"

What it's like to be "lost" in what should be a "worship experience"

Babbling can turn "strangers" into "friends"

"Babbling" is something any of us can try. It quickly turns "strangers" into "friends". It can be done with two persons or 2,000 persons, but it requires that each person has a partner.

The Leader assigns a topic - first to one partner, then to the other partner. The "assignment" is to talk - non-stop - for thirty seconds on the assigned topic.or anything else the speaker wants to say to fill the thirty seconds.

Among the topics assigned at the 2005 Annual Meeting were:

• Watermelon
• Ice Cream
• What do I do to relax?
• When did I feel like a stranger?
• When did I make someone feel welcome?
• When have I felt loved?
• What do I like to do on Saturday?

Many, many friends were made during these thirty-second exchanges.

"Babbling" was followed by a brief worship experience after which Ruth asked "how did this worship feel?" Participants began to express their frustration with the experience, for the Order of Worship had typos and letters that were mirror-images of alphabet letters they were expecting.

Ruby Wilson led us in a worship which was confusing to some.

As we listened to people expressing their frustration with not being able to follow their "mixed-up Order of Worship," we came to understand:

We need to be alert to and offer help to persons who may find worship in our church as unfamiliar as the mirror-images of alphabet letters in the April 9 Order of Worship.

We need to make our worship as new-user-friendly as possible.