Blessed with New Faces

In recent weeks, it seems that we've been seeing quite a few new faces at AABC. On Sunday mornings, we've seen lots of new visitors—families that have heard about AABC through friends, young adults that have just moved into town, students that are new to the DFW area. And we praise God for a Super Bowl Party at the Tien's on February 4th, during which we got to meet a handful of international students (or former students) of UT Dallas, partnering with UTD's ISI Ministry. And then we even made a new friend who was a walk-on for AABC's Tuesday night flag football team.

It's a blessing to see new faces and meet new people, but it often runs counter to our initial inclinations to initiate meaningful conversation and interaction with these new folks. Here, I've found, are a few good tips...

Don't be uncomfortable! I find that any awkwardness or uncomfortableness that I feel when meeting someone new is easily sensed by the person I'm meeting... and it makes them feel uncomfortable too. Ask the question, "What am I uncomfortable about?" If it has to do with being preoccupied with how this person perceives me—often we desire to maintain some sort of image for other people—then this preoccupation with self may be something that needs to be prayed about and sacrificed to God. If it has something to do with not wanting to get to know another person by listening or learning about them—it's often easier to stick to the friends that we have and not have to invest in other people—then we need to pray for God to continue opening our eyes to His abundant love in order that we might overflow with that same love to those around.

Ask good questions! One of the things I admire about our Missions Pastoral Intern (Avery) is that he often asks such good questions of people. After moving past the initial "So, where did you and your family move from?" types of questions, I can imagine Avery asking questions like, "Have the children in your family been finding it difficult to move far away from their friends and adjust to a new school?" Too often, I simply run through my list of simple questions (What kind of work are you in? How did you hear about our church? Did you know that we have Sunday School classes after service today?) and then let the conversation drift off into oblivion. It sure helps to listen intently to how this new person is responding to my initial questions so that I can know how best to continue the conversation.

Which leads us naturally to the next tip... Listen! I was told not too long ago that so often in conversations, communication breaks down because the participants are too busy thinking of the next thing to say rather than actually listening to what is currently being said. Slow down, and don't feel like you have to be so quick to respond. Make sure that your first priority is to listen well.

Show more than friendliness. Show love. Sometimes we think that all we need to do is just convince visitors that the people at our church are friendly. But we need to go so much further than friendly. Friendly is easy, but Jesus was more than just friendly. Jesus was loving. How, then, can go beyond friendliness and actually show visitors that we love them? For starters, we can take genuine interest in the lives of those we meet. Friendliness means being willing to carry on a conversation for 3 minutes. Showing love means demonstrating genuine care and concern for the person you're talking with, and even looking for ways that you or the church can meet this person's needs.

Let's look to love those who walk through our doors on a Sunday morning, or join us for a get-together at a home, or come out to play football or volleyball with us. You'll run into a few more this coming Sunday, and then next week, and the week after. We are blessed by the opportunity to show love and care for new people. May we be faithful stewards of this blessing.