Allow me to introduce you to Slade's Law of Church Choice and Hospitality: Never attend a church which has the word "friendly" in the name, or in their advertised motto or slogan. Any church that feels the need to boast about how friendly they are, is definitely not. I formulated this law many years ago, while searching for a temporary church home while I was taking my Masters degree. I went to a number of churches. Eugene, Oregon, has a Friendly Street among its thoroughfares, and it has a Baptist church on it: Friendly Street Baptist Church. Simply because of the law, I never went there.
The law has already shown its validity in Port Alberni. I had noticed a church as being near to a place where I frequently was on my visits. When I noticed a car in the lot I went over, and did manage to talk to the administrator, and the interim pastor of the church. The interim pastor told me that it was a very friendly church. So I warned him about Slade's law of church choice. He got a good chuckle out of it. I very much doubt that he realized how appropriate it was to the church that he was pastoring.
This is probably the weirdest experience I have had encountering a new church. And that's saying something, since I have had a lot of experience going to new churches.
In most places, there is a bit of variation in the scheduling of church services, and you can sometimes get to two or three on a Sunday. Not Port Alberni. Pretty much all the churches in Port Alberni have their Sunday morning services at 10:30 AM. Simultaneously. You get one shot per Sunday. That's it.
On the first available Sunday, I went to the church I had noted. I got to the church earlier than the service, since I had had a task to perform nearby. I managed to find an open door, although it wasn't easy. (First issue.) There were some people in the church already. Who ignored me.
OK, that sounds petty. Let me be clear: just because I show up somewhere, I don't expect people to fall all over me. My life history has given ample evidence that, whenever I go anywhere, I can expect to be ignored. I am unimportant, and easily overlooked. However, in churches, and particularly in smaller churches, the members tend to know one another, and can be somewhat territorial, even though churches are, to a certain extent, public buildings. They may challenge you in a friendly sounding way, but they do like to know who the stranger in town is. It is a bit unusual to go into a church and not have *anyone* ask who you are.
A number of churches will have, in their narthex or foyer outside of the sanctuary, a table which they set up for coffee either before or after the service. This tends to be the primary socializing time (and place) for the church. This church has a permanent coffee station, with a single serve coffee machine, signage indicating how it is to be used, signage requesting people to wash up after themselves, coffee whitener and sugar and artificial sweetener, and also tea and hot chocolate as well as a kettle. This does look promising, as it does seem to indicate a commitment to this socialization within the church itself.
The second oddity was that, seemingly, nobody used the coffee station either before, or after, the service.
As noted, there were people in the church when I arrived. (Who ignored me.) Other people arrived later, and I happened to be near the door where they were coming in. These people also basically ignored me. (With one single exception, a nice lady who did ask if I was new and queried me as to my presence in Port Alberni and why I was there. But nobody else did.) In fact the church administrator came in while I was standing there. She had seen me on three previous occasions. She gave absolutely no indication that she recognized me at all, and certainly did not greet me.
The service was uninspired and uninspiring. I'm fairly used to that, and don't have high expectations.
After the service a lady did speak to me, and ask after my presence in Port Alberni, my reason for being there, and various other aspects of my life. During the course of this, very lengthy, conversation, she proved many times that she was not listening to my answers. It was as if she had been given instruction on how to greet newcomers, and had memorized the list of questions to ask, but had missed the point about having to actually listen to the answers. It was a very surreal "conversation." (It was mostly a bit of a monologue.) At one point, another person joined the conversation, or at least came and stood nearby. The lady who had been talking to me turned to him and introduced me--getting pretty much everything wrong. I said, "That was a really interesting introduction. It almost completely misrepresented my situation in its entirety." The person she had introduced me to didn't turn a hair. She did pause, and say, "What?" I said, "No, no, you were saying?" She then carried on as if nothing happened. I know that I was not behaving too terribly well in saying this. By this point in the conversation I was almost openly mocking her lack of communication skills. But the situation was so bizarre and frustrating. I mentioned that the conversation was lengthy. She took up so much time that I did not have any chance to encounter anyone else in the church (and I had intended to meet one of the people who had been identified as a church elder). By the time I could get away from her he had gone and I had lost my chance. By that time *everyone* had gone, and I had lost my chance to meet anyone else.
The church had advertised a Bible study at 7:00 PM during the announcements showing on the screen at the front of the sanctuary, prior to the start of the morning service. So I decided to give the church another chance, and came back at 7:00 PM for the Bible study. Nobody showed up.
I also found it interesting that the church did have guest wifi available. But only in the building that was their former sanctuary, and is now unused except for overflow capacity, which doesn't seem to be needed at all.
I really don't know. Is this just a really bad experience, occurring totally at random? Or is this God's leading and direction to me, pretty clearly saying "this is not your church." On the advice of a friend, I will be going back some other time. But I'll probably try out a number of other churches, first.
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