Friendship Five Factor
Gretchen S. Jordan, Director of Christian Education

Many years ago, I read an article on hospitality in a church newsletter which offered some interesting information.  While I cannot quote the article, it went something like this:  a person is five times as likely to return if he/she is contacted by a parishioner within five days of his/her visit;  if a person visits your parish five times and is not called by name by at least one parishioner and personally invited to participate in some activity or program (even to join him/her in the dining room for coffee) or if a person joins your parish and is not assimilated into some working part of the parish within five months, you may as well open the door and invite him/her to move down the street to University Presbyterian or Holy Trinity!

I attended a meeting of a newly formed committee which is considering ways we as a parish can be a more welcoming, hospitable parish.  One parishioner stated that you could always tell who the visitors were in the dining room after a service.  They are the ones who are standing alone or with one other person (who probably is the spouse) perusing the framed church history pictures hanging on the pillars!

Bishop Curry has charged us with being a people of outrageous hospitality.  What would our life as a community of faith look like if we translated that into action?  Certainly we are a large parish.  Each week we see people around us who appear to be visitors.  More than once I have heard a parishioner state that they sometimes do not extend a hand and seek the name of a person who appears to be a visitor for fear of being embarrassed when the person says they have been here 30 years and served as senior warden twice!  But how much more embarrassing for anyone to enter and leave this sacred place without having met someone who could call them by name and extend a welcoming hand?

Extending hospitality is a first step toward koinonia, the act or ministry of building Christian community.  Maria Harris in her book, Fashion Me A People, writes: “"People come into a church in many different ways, and often in a combination of ways but the common elements in affiliating with a community tend to be remarkably constant.  These are the impetus toward belonging; toward associating with those sharing a common heritage, belief, and way of life; and toward the human need to share.  Although it may not be reached, the ideal embodied in community is the movement toward unity and union with others:  communion and community."”