Parish Hospitality - Is Yours a Hit or a Swing and a Miss?

If you're new to this blog, welcome! Hope you visit us frequently and come to be an admired acquaintance. Hospitality goes much further than welcoming new people doesn't it? It involves, among other things, good communication, well-maintained buildings, flower beds and lawns, directional signs posted in highly visible places for ease of finding the parish office, restrooms and meeting rooms, and plenty of accessible parking and seating in the church. These factors are inviting to people and helps them want to be there and want to come back.

Great hospitality doesn't happen by accident. It takes a conscious effort and strategy. Be sure to consider all parishioners (ages, ethnicities, physical abilities, emotional needs, etc.) in your planning! One weekend while visiting friends in Minneapolis, my husand and I attended Mass at a parish that offered cloth bags in the vestibule for use by parents of small children. In the bags were religious coloring books and a few crayons, snack packages, toddler picture books of Bible stories, rosaries with very large beads, and other items to occupy the little ones during Liturgy. Parents repackaged the items as neatly as they could and returned the bags to a special rack in the greeting area after Mass.

When I discussed this with our friends, they told me there is a committee of parents and grandparents who meet once a week to cleanse the beads and books, wash the bags, replenish snacks and broken crayons and get the bags ready for Masses again. I have to confess that during Mass I was so amazed about how well behaved these children were (and there were a lot of them,) I kept looking around to see what they were doing, and totally forgot why I was there, i.e. worship! This hospitality ministry keeps little ones content and occupied, their parents feel welcomed and encouraged to bring their children to Mass, and attendees, except me, can focus on Liturgy with fewer child eruptions.

Does your parish have a hospitality committee? Do you have lots of different endeavors in order to involve as many folks as possible? What are you doing to foster the feeling of belonging in parishioners? What efforts could be done better? What would you never do again? If your parish hospitality needs a boost, what are two or three new practices you could easily implement within the next few months? Then in six to eight months, implement two or three additional ideas, and so on. Be sure to measure your results too! Is what you're doing working? Why or Why not?

Well, I'm heading back to the vineyard. Please share your "vineyard" stories; I'd love to read them...you go, too.