The Church Answers Podcast

#148 When I Visited a Church and Was Asked to Stand and Greet People

For those who know Thom, you know he is an introvert. You might also know he would rather have a root canal than experience the “stand and greet” time in a worship service. He recounts the time he visited a church and why he hopes he never has to return.

Duration:: 10m
Broadcast on:: 05 Mar 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Welcome to the Church Answers podcast presented by Chaney & Associates. Chaney & Associates are the accounting firm for the church. Now get ready for fast-paced insights on key issues affecting the local church today. We release three episodes each week, so make sure you've seen or heard them all. And now, here's the CEO of Church Answers, Tom Rayner. Hey, we always want to thank Chaney & Associates, if you're listening to this on your eye casting out, you heard the bumper talk about them, and if you're watching me on YouTube, you didn't, and I just want to give a shout out to Chaney & Associates, the accounting firm for the church. Hey, check your show notes, check Google Chaney & Associates. They're really the accounting firm for the church. Over 1100 churches that they've served in accounting and payroll services. They've been around for over 21 years. They're the ones we recommend. Love the partnership with them, greatly appreciative of them. Okay, here is this title. When I visited church and was asked to stand in great people, one of the most read blogs that I've ever written was about this issue, at the time over 1 million people read it, stand in great time. For the most part, it generated favorable reaction, but I tell you what, I got a lot of critics in that just because of the sheer volume of it. So, you know, what is a stand in great time? Well, some of the more liturgical churches might have something called passing the peace or something that is more formal than a stand in great time, but many churches, many Protestant churches, have a time where everybody stands up and greets one another. There are different ways of doing that. One is you can have the guests remain seated and the members stand. Another one is you can have the guests stand and the visitors remain seated. Either one of those, you got to know, I don't like them. I don't like them. I am biased in this. I totally get it. I am an introvert and so I really don't like the stand in great time. But I think if your church is having a stand in great time, you might want to reconsider. You hear my bias, but you might want to reconsider. Most of the time, I am at my son's church. I'm in Brandon, Florida, listening to Sam preach, or I'm in Spring Hill, Tennessee, listening to Jess preach. I have committed not to accept weekend engagements anymore, Sunday engagements, I should say, for the most part, rare exceptions. So I'm sitting in the church listening to my son's preach. They don't have a stand in great time for that. I am so grateful. So I was recently in a church, recently in a church where I was doing a consultation and I agreed, made an exception to stay over for Sunday, just to observe their worship services. Oh, my. It about kill me. They had a stand in great time. And then only did they have a stand in great time. They recognized me. They called me out by name. We have Dr. Rainer here. Y'all may have read some of his books. Please be quiet. All these eyes that are looking at me, all these people that are looking at me. I just, when I got home to my hotel after the service, I just crawled up into a ball in the bed and just had to just totally withdraw from what happened to me. When I visited the church, I was reminded why I do not like the stand in great time. OK, I'm hearing you. I'm biased. I'm an introvert. I get it. I don't mind staring at the corner of a wall all day as long as there are no people around me. I know I'm strange. So that's my perspective. I'm going to say it was, I mean, it's been, it's been a couple of years, but I'm still thinking about it. I'm still remembering that experience. I don't want to call it traumatic because that would, that would make a light of the people who've gone through real trauma. But it was not fun. It was not fun. I didn't know churches. I didn't know this church was still doing that. And I didn't know that they would call me out. So what happened was everybody stood up and they asked the guests to remain seated. And of course, there's probably two or three percent of us remaining seated. And Pastor sees me and says, oh, there's Tom Rainer because he's sitting down. And then these people come up to me and shake my hand and welcome me to church. And oh my goodness, it was, it was terrible. Even as they were greeting one another. Okay. Let me just give you some reasons why you might want to consider not doing a standing great time. Number one, 30 to 50 percent of personalities are introvert. There have been different psychological studies. That's a big range. But the low end is 30 percent. The high end is one half of the population are introverts. And I get this. There can be different extremes of introverts. There can be very, very high, very intensive introverts like me. There can be some that are more toward the middle and blended. But 30 to 50 percent of the population are introverts. Guess what? Most introverts are not going to like standing great times. So you're automatically making it as much as half of the people uncomfortable. And I'm going to tell you, a large number of your members don't like it. Even if they participate in it. So you're off, you're off on a bad foot just because you got all of these people who don't like the standing great time. Another reason that you, I would consider maybe you don't want to do that is there are a lot of people who are unfamiliar with this ritual. If you will have it there, they just, they don't know about it. And all of a sudden see people standing up and coming at them like, like, they are flats on a light bulb. That's maybe not a good metaphor. But anyway, coming up to them real quickly, it's can be overwhelming because some people visit churches and they never been to a church with standing great time. And all of a sudden church has it. Boom. It is a pain in the personality. I just got to tell you that. So many people are unfamiliar with this. So you got as much as half of the population, this introverted, they're not going to like standing great time. And then you got people who are just unfamiliar with this ritual. I know the Bible says give a holy kiss, but there's another story to that. So I'm not going to recommend that you kiss instead of having a standing great time, but they're just unfamiliar with it. Now, another reason is this. I've seen it again and again. And I've heard from people who talk about their existing standing great time or their former standing great time because they saw the light. What happens in many standing great times is it's the formation of the holy huddle. People go and greet people they know and they hug them and they welcome them and they're glad to see them and they start talking. I'll tell you in many standing great times that are designed to make people feel comfortable, the guest often feels most uncomfortable because the guest he or she can tell that everybody knows everybody, but the guest doesn't know anybody. And so the formation of the holy huddle often takes place during the standing great time. Watch it. And don't try to break them out of the huddle by telling them to go up to the person and tell them they're beautiful. Oh, I hate it when they say look to the person next to you and tell them something. No, don't do that. It's one of the reasons for years I would make myself. Well, I would leave the sanctuary knowing that a standing great time was coming. I guess I thought I was going to the restroom or something, but I just get out of there because if I want to have someone look at me and say you're pretty, you're handsome. First of all, I know they're not sincere. They're lying. And then second of all, it's just really uncomfortable. So the formation of the holy huddle takes place. And if you try to break them out of it by telling them to go talk to someone and tell them what to say is even worse. So three reasons thus far. One is much as half of the population is introverted. Two, more people are unfamiliar with standing great. Even Christians who go to church regularly because they used to be a part of it. And now third, formation of holy huddles. So the standing great time often defeats its own purpose. You're supposed to be greeting people, making them feel welcome. And what you see is people talking to people that they know. A fourth reason is this, the standing great time forces people to be friendly. And when a guest shows up, that man or that woman knows that they're being friendly because they were told to be friendly. We need to get to the point where our church members are naturally friendly. When you come into a church, someone comes up to you and starts speaking to you or sitting with you, the standing great time is unnatural. And I guarantee you that the guests really know that the only person that's talking to you, the only reason they are is because they were told to during the standing great time. Now if you wonder if where I stand on the standing great time, that should answer you. And when I went into a church a couple of years ago and they had the standing great time and it's been two or three years and I'm still working on getting over it. I will say this, if you're doing the standing great time, consider those who might be like me or even not as extreme and you're making come up with some other ways to get your church friendly. That's my opinion. This is the church answers podcast. You can agree or disagree, but I always thank you for being here. Thank you, Chaney and associates for being the accounting firm for the church. Thank you for the ministry you've had for so many years over two decades. And thank you listeners and viewer for hearing me out on this issue where I'm pretty passionate. See you in the next episode. You have been listening to the church answers podcast presented by Chaney and associates. Chaney and associates are the accounting firm for the church. You need to focus on ministry. Chaney will focus on finances. Also please subscribe and give a review to the church answers podcast on YouTube and on your favorite podcasting app. [MUSIC]