Another Voice

I ran into this comment on another forum board, and it seemed to fit into our discussion:

I have had a variety of experiences with Episcopal churches. My favorite church ever was Episcopal which was charismatic and had a generally contemporary worship service. Everything was written out on the bulletin or displayed on a screen. It was one of the most visitor friendly churches I have ever been in.

However, I must say that some of the most visitor unfriendly churches I have ever been in have also been Episcopal. You have multiple song books, plus the book of common prayer and a bulletin full of cryptic page references with only abbreviations indicating which book the page is in. And then on top of it all no direction is given by leadership to give the poor visitor any indication of what to do when or what book to grab next. The result is a distracted, awkward and sometimes embarrassing church experience for the unchurched visitor. Many Episcopal churches are so tradition bound and so inward and past oriented that they give absolutely no thought to building bridges to those outside the tradition who come for a visit.

In my view Episcopalians would do well to pay at least a little attention to the church growth movement and learn how to market themselves and be a little bit more visitor sensitive before their aging congregations all die, and the churches close down. Every single Episcopal church I have ever visited that is like what I described above is full of people with gray hair and very few with hair any other color.

It does no good to be gay friendly and welcoming if no gay person knows you exist and can't figure out what the heck you are talking about or doing if they happen to stumble into your church.

The hymn book user friendliness is a huge issue and is more important to how a visitor perceives a church than the style or quality of the music. People don't like feeling embarrassed and out of place, and not being able to follow the music or the service will make them feel that way almost as quickly as an insensitive sermon. No matter how enchanting the music is, if the visitor feels constantly embarrassed and singled out because he's constantly doing the wrong thing, he will not enjoy the service and will very likely never visit your church or any other church again.