If You Only Build It, They May Not Come: Challenges to Finding a Church

I do a lot of traveling and I frequently am able to visit other churches on Sunday mornings when I'm out of town. These occasions as an unknown visitor in an unknown United Methodist congregation may provide another article, but this one is about the challenges in finding a church to visit and obstacles sometimes placed in my path by those churches. I group these obstacles in three categories: hospitality, carelessness, and anonymity.

1. HOSPITALITY
Some churches are less than welcoming, usually due to lack of attention and forethought. I always try to call the church office from my hotel room prior to my visit so that I can confirm the time and location. Sometimes I get a live person, others a recording, and others the phone just rings on and on, unanswered. Here are obstacles I've encountered with all three of these.

• In the case of the continually unanswered phone, what can one do but call back? And when repeated calls remain unanswered, the response is to just move on to another church. Is there any reason in the age of $15 answering machines why a church wouldn't have one installed and working, offering a friendly word from the pastor and at least the times of worship and Sunday school? Every church can do this, and also offer a chance to leave a message if no one is in to take the call.
• Many churches already do this, but I am amazed at the number of churches that do not put their worship schedule on their recorded message. Some messages are outdated, containing information about special Christmas services long into January. Some messages are unintelligible, either because something is wrong with the equipment or the person recording the message can't be heard or understood.
• The most difficult hospitality problem to understand, though, is one involving a living, breathing, speaking person. I have actually encountered such persons on the phone who, in addition to not being able to inform me about the worship times, cannot provide directions to the church or the name of a local landmark or major intersection, even a general section of the city in which the church is located. Apparently some of the people who answer church phones are newer to and less familiar with the area than I am. And then there is the occasional person who seems unwilling to give information, unwilling to find someone who can provide information, unwilling to take a message, unwilling to ask the pastor or secretary to return my call, or just plain rude. One wonders why anyone would want to attend a church where that kind of person is a visitor's first point of contact with the congregation.

2. CARELESSNESS

• On some Sunday mornings, even after having looked up the church in the Yellow Pages, calling during the week to confirm worship times, and receiving driving directions, I still am prevented from worshiping because some part of the information provided to me was incorrect. I have learned that Yellow Pages and newspaper ads are often outdated or incorrect, so I only rely on information received from a live person. And yet I have received wrong or incomplete directions and wrong worship times. One morning I left the hotel for worship in plenty of time to be there for the prelude, and I was armed with driving directions received several days earlier when I called the church office. I had even repeated the directions back to the person on the phone for confirmation. Unfortunately, the directions took me nowhere near the location of the church, and at 11:00 I was still looking for the church. After consulting MapQuest.com when I got back to the hotel, I discovered the person had omitted a crucial step in the directions.
• On yet another Sunday morning, I arrived at the church thirty minutes prior to the start of worship. I had even driven by the church the day before and took note of the worship hour on the outside signboard. Yet, by fifteen minutes after the stated starting time for worship, there were no cars or people in sight and all doors were locked. I later found out that the pastor had gone out of town for a conference and the people called each other and decided to cancel worship that Sunday. They never bothered to put up a sign on the front door.

3. ANONYMITY
I realize that I am not the typical visitor or prospective member. I've been employed full- and part-time in church music ministry for over forty years, and I'm probably more knowledgeable and resourceful than most visitors. I'm also more persistent in tracking down the information I need to find a church in a strange community. Since I'm in an unknown city, I can't rely on recommendations or invitations. I'm more likely to attend a particular church because I drove by it, or because it had an ad in the Yellow Pages or newspaper.

• Occasionally I have telephoned the local district UMC office of a city I am visiting. I have asked for a list of local churches and sometimes a map showing their locations. They usually cannot or will not provide these.
• Left to my own resources, I use the phone book and the telephone, newspaper, Chamber of Commerce, e-mail, internet search engines, UMCOM's resources offered on its website, and personal conversations with the hotel desk clerk. Despite all of that, there are still UMCs in some communities that will remain undiscovered and unvisited — by me or by someone newly relocated to their community — they are virtually anonymous.

My guess is that these circumstances are common to communities and United Methodist churches all over the USA. It may be more common than any of us would like to believe. And these are things every church can easily correct. I offer some suggestions and solutions:

1. District offices should keep current and make available upon request a list of churches, addresses, telephone numbers, and pastors' names. A map showing church locations would be helpful.
2. Be sure your church's phone book and Yellow Pages listings are accurate.
3. Give your church's information to your local Chamber of Commerce.
4. If you have a church telephone answering machine, check and update the message weekly.
5. Be sure to include worship times. Give callers an opportunity to leave a message, and then be sure to return it. If you don't have a church answering machine, get one and use it.
6. Use current technology: get a church webpage and e-mail address. Keep information current and publish e-mail addresses and webpage URLs. Be sure they are included in your district's listing, are on your church letterhead, in your worship bulletin and newsletter, on your business cards, in your newspaper ad, and in your Yellow Pages listing.
7. List your church and keep its information current on UMCOM's website church listing.
8. Place a small, simple map in your newspaper and Yellow Pages ads locating your church with a couple of street names and an arrow pointing north.
9. Be sure that all items produced by your church include its name, address, phone, e-mail address and webpage URL: bulletins, newsletters, written communication, envelopes, concert and program handouts, business cards, envelopes, flyers, posters — anything that has the chance of being seen by nonmembers or being passed on by members. I am amazed at the worship bulletins, concert programs, and written communications that come to my desk with no identifying information.

Field of Dreams was an entertaining movie, but the mysterious message given to Kevin Costner is certainly not Jesus' message to the church. Jesus went out of his way to find and call the disciples, and their charge was to go into all the world. The charge to the church today is not "If you build it they will come." If all we do is build our buildings, we have little chance of finding and making disciples of Jesus Christ, or of transforming our communities and the world. In addition to going into our world and communities, we must do all we can to invite the world to come to our homefield.