We are visitors (part 1)

I have referred to this subject before, but Robin "encouraged" me to write a series of blog posts about this subject (read: "You should really write about this!"). When we moved down to southern Germany almost a year ago, for the first time we were outsiders looking in instead of insiders looking out. We were church visitors!

Before we had always been the ones welcoming, assisting, getting to know and following up on visitors. But everything changed when we went from pastoral ministry to mentoring, coaching and training. we now got to see what a church looks like to a visitor. It was almost as if we got fresh eyes.
The next few blogs will have some of our experiences as visitors (we visited quite a few different churches -- both German and English-speaking -- and most of these multiple times while looking for a new church home)... and suggestions for pastors and those in church leadership. It would do us all good to begin to look at our churches and ministries with these "fresh eyes!"