Excel Still More: The Visitor

Our worship assembly is a special time. It is a time when we gather together as the church at one time and in one place, all with the same purpose. The worship assembly is first and foremost about God’s children coming together to worship Him and to build one another up (i.e. Ephesians 5:19ff, etc…).

There is another element to our assembly that the Bible speaks of, and that is the element of the visitor to the assembly. James mentions the visitor to the assembly:

“My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? ”(James 2:1–5, NASB95)

James is showing that the attention you give (or do not give) to individuals in your assembly is an expression of your “religion” (James 1:27). If you fail to greet and treat your visitor with the love that you have for yourself you are failing to keep the Law of the King (James 2:8). This makes you a hearer and not a doer (James 1:22). This places us in a position of judging our neighbor (James 2:4) and James asks, “but who are you judge your neighbor?” (James 4:12).

Failure to greet and treat the visitor in our assembly is a serious matter. How we treat them is an honest reflection of our true nature and condition. If we fail to show the visitor in our assembly the love that we would want shown to us, we find ourselves in a place of judgment.
Based upon this truth here are several suggestions of ways that will aid us in carrying out the royal law towards our visitors in our assemblies. First have visitor eyes. Visitor eyes are the basis upon which the rest of the suggestions are built. As an individual, and as a whole church, it is necessary to develop and commit to an attitude of always thinking about the visitor in your midst. It’s easy to watch the visitor walk in and out. It’s even easy to say a word or two to them. But visitor eyes are a heart and attitude that wants to see that the visitor is treated the way you would want to be treated if you were visiting.

Second you can ask a visitor to sit with you. A big group of people they have never met before can be very intimidating. When a friendly smile asks a visitor to sit with them it can go a very long ways. This allows the visitor to feel at ease as you are helping them through the motions so they aren’t asking themselves constantly, “Am I doing what I’m supposed to do? I don’t want to stand out!”

Third you can have assigned greeters at the doors of your assembly location. This is a good way to make sure that visitors are quickly greeted upon arrival. The greeters make sure that the visitors’ information is taken so you can follow up with the visitor. The greeter also will explain to the visitor what classes are going on and where their children’s classes are. The greeters can also hand out any material you have specifically designed for the visitor. It’s a good idea to have a visitor’s packet with information for the visitor to take home. There is one word of caution on assembly greeters. It’s very easy for the entire assembly to thing that since we have greeters I don’t need to do anything personally with the visitors. This could not be further from the truth. The greeter does not replace the individual responsibility of each and every member to show his true religion towards each and every visitor.

Fourth you need to follow up with your visitors. A follow up contact expresses to the visitor that you thought about them. Try to make your follow up contact as personal as you can. In other words, don’t just send say generic things in generic ways. If you send them an email, or a letter, try to include something personal about their visit. Maybe mention something they said to you when they visited. Maybe mention something from the assembly that day. You can also get a group together that takes turns delivering cookies and a thank you for visiting card to all your visitors a day or two after their visit. The best way to be sure your visitor will only be a one-time visitor is to not follow up.

Fifth you can ask your visitor out to eat. It just so happens that our assemblies usually end right before meal time. What a great opportunity to ask your visitors out to lunch. You can spend that time getting to know them better as well as talking to them about the church. By doing this you are already connecting the visitor to the church and beginning the process of relationship building.

Sixth, and finally, is to be devoted to F-3-4-V. F-3-4-V stands for first three for visitors, and means that every single member should spend the first three minutes IMMEDIATELY after the assembly to SEEK out ALL the visitors that day. Once you find them you personally introduce yourself and tell them how much you appreciated their presence, and how you are looking forward to them coming back. Just imagine an entire room full of people lining up to greet the visitors. Imagine how you would feel if that’s how you were treated. You would feel special! So will our visitors if we do the same. This is easy to implement. All it takes is educating the members on what F34V stands for. Then whoever dismisses the assembly simply has to say “Members, always remember, F34V.” This way the visitors don’t know that you are reminding the members to greet them, and at the same time it’s reminding your members to greet them.

You may think, “We do a good job at greeting our visitors.” That very well may be true. But the question should be, “can we do better?” Can we excel still more? Sure we can! What will you do to excel still more in showing the visitor to the assembly that you love them as yourself?

Excel Still More

            Jesus is perfect, man is not. There is no room for improvement with Jesus, there is for man. No matter how good we are right now, we can be better.  In a passage that is often neglected, or quickly read past, for fear of addressing false ideas on individual predestination, there is a great lesson we must learn, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren ” (Romans 8:29, NASB95). God predetermined before he created anything in this world that it was going to be those who were becoming “conformed to the image of His son” that would be His saved people. What that means is we are in a constant process of pressing the clay of our lives into the perfect mold of Jesus. We are constantly pushing the clay into the mold and never completely getting there. It’s when we keep pushing though that Jesus fills in the gaps with regard to our justification before God. This is a process that is unending until the day we die!

            No matter where you are at spiritually in your relationship and work for the Lord - You can do better! You can excel still more! Paul writes to the church in Thessalonica praising them every chance he gets about the great things they are doing. Even in all of that he says, “Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more ” (1 Thessalonians 4:1). He also says, “Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more ” (1 Thessalonians 4:9–10). Did you catch that? He says you are doing a fantastic job at walking in the instruction of the Lord, but excel still more! You are doing a fantastic job in love towards the brethren, but excel still more! You can do better!

            You might be the best song leader that this church has ever seen, but you can excel still more! You might be the best encourager this church has ever seen, but you can excel still more! You might be the biggest giver this church has ever seen, but you can excel still more! You may attend assemblies more that 25% of the congregation, but you can excel still more. You may be the best person at studying in the congregation, but you can excel still more. You may be the best Bible class teacher the church has ever had, but you can excel still more. Are you getting the picture here? No matter what work you are doing, no matter where you are spiritually, you are not perfect (because God alone is perfect) and you have room to excel still more! 

            T.F. Hanson, a creative engineer, says “progress infers change, since things cannot get better if they remain the same” (Engineering Creativity, pg. 13). Excelling still the more infers that even if what you are doing now “works” you have to take risks to do better. We don’t like taking risks most of the time, we just like staying with the old tradition. We know it works, we’ve been doing it that way for X number of years. Yes it may “work” but it may not be the best! We can excel still more if we are willing to change! Einstein said after the first atomic explosion, “Everything has changed, except the way we think."

Thomas Edison said, “Human inertia is the problem, not the invention. Something in man makes him resist change.” This quality is good when we are talking about people trying to change the things of which God has given to us, because if He gave them they are perfect; the design of the church, worship, salvation, etc…! But when it comes to matters of expedience this mindset is one of the biggest enemies of the church. A lack of desire to excel still the more, an unwillingness to change, an unwillingness to push beyond our comfort zones in the way we think about something “working.” God expects better of us. He demands us to “excel still more!”

What are you going to do to excel still more in your walk and work with the Lord? Take an inventory of where you are. Write down these questions and then answer them (be specific i.e. “I worship whenever I can” is not specific):

1.      How often do I worship with the brethren?

2.      How many people do I talk to at worship? Are they the same people every time?

3.      Do I participate in the worship?

4.      Do I participate in the teaching program?

5.      Do I participate in the church work through programs like Monday Night for the Mast?

6.      How many people have I tried to have a spiritual discussion with in the world?

7.      How many people have I invited to worship?

8.      What do I do to grow my relationship with my spouse?

9.      What do I do to build up my family?

10.  What do I do to be an influence for Christ on my job?

11.  What do I do to see that the churches work is done?

Now look over the list and your answers. Set a goal that is an excelling of where you are now. For instance, “How often do I worship with the brethren?” You may answer once a week. Set a goal to worship two or three times. Go through the entire list this way. Now when you are finished you need to make a commitment that you are going to excel still more so you can meet those goals. As you analyze the list you may find that you don’t know how to excel. You need information, you need instruction, and you need to be equipped to meet those goals. That is where your church leadership steps in! The function of the leadership is to equip you for service (Ephesians 4:11ff). Simply go to one of the elders, deacons, or minister and tell them you need help. If they can’t provide the help individually they will all be sure that you get what you need; that you are equipped to excel still more. Now GO do it!

Excel Still More,

Caleb O’Hara