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DISCUSSAliens in Our Midst Visitor Response Plan
01/09/2008
By Kathy Harris-Zmudka
Are you wasting valuable time at Elder/Deacon meetings brainstorming new ways to embarrass first-time guests? Time that could be used brainstorming new ways to embarrass, torture, and bore the youth?
Do visitors leave at the end of services looking happy and self-satisfied instead of chastened and overwhelmed?
Do visitors participate effortlessly in Praise and Worship without a care in the world, instead of being frightened of public embarrassment immediately afterward?
If you answered YES to any of these questions, then the Aliens in Our Midst® Visitor Response Plan is for you!
The PLAN comes with:
• Creative, non-denominational suggestions for embarrassing first time attendees at any church
• Denominationally specific recommendations for surprising visitors during the service, such as:
Methodist: “Lift your hands HIGH ... HIGHER ... if you REALLY love the Lord ....”
Pentecostal: “We shall now commence with our corporate speaking in tongues time. Shalaya, shalaya ....”
Baptist: “Here, have one of our big red name tags, adorned with one of those cute Confederate flags.”
Charismatic: “You there, in the striped shirt and dockers. Yeah, you! The Lord is revealing to me RIGHT NOW that you have the interpretation for this prophecy in tongues. Kumbarashambara, kumbarashambara ...”
Episcopal: “I’m sorry, but we don’t allow off-the-rack suits here.”
• 20 Aliens in Our Midst® nametags ready for personalization, enough for the number of visitors a small to medium-sized church is likely to receive in a year
Order now!—Call 1-800-NOVISITORS
Aliens in Our Midst Visitor Response Plan®
“When you care enough to keep the riff-raff out of YOUR church!”
How about every time you visit, wherever you sit, someone comes up and says, "That's my seat!" Then there's the kid that kicks you in the head throughout the concert, and the parents that won't put their squalling brats in the mothers' room, so you go in there to get away from the noise.
Dagnabbit, you people always leave us Presbyterians out of the mix. Let me offer this addition:
Presbyterian: "Before we begin, the Procedures Subcommittee of our Congregational Visioning Taskforce has asked us to make a brief presentation regarding the structure of our outreach plan for 2008. If all of you would please refer to item IX.4.b on page four of the bulletin insert..."
I've got you beat...
they never say anything about us Quakers.
Just take your "Presbyterian" and cross it with some UU, and you'd at least get CLOSE.
In an "unprogrammed" Quaker setting, this would probably work:
*person rises in the last 2 minutes* "As I was driving to meeting, a story came on NPR, they were talking about the mideast peace process, I couldn't help but think of a song we used to sing back in the 60s...blah blah blah...It just reminds me of how wonderful silence is, because it gives me a chance to think about the lilies I saw driving to meeting, and that gets to the core of what Friends have spoken about today, that if we'd just sing "Kumbaya" and watch more PBS, the world would be a better place."
Which reminds me...I've always wanted to sing "Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode during meeting for worship...
Hmmm...
That "Charismatic" one's version of "speaking in tongues" bears an amazing resemblance to the "speaking in tongues" of Robert Tilton...although his is more like "Ko-Bobba-Shonda..."
Or, for just about any church in North America:
"Now we'd like to take a moment to recognize that (insert race here) family right over there."
The First Church Of Kenneth Copeland: (in Texas drawl) "Well you know what the Lord just spoke to my heart?" He's fix'in to give Gloria her own Cessna X business jet! "Praise God! "Amen!" "Git out your checkbooks and start writin!" "Million is spelled,M-I-L-L-I-O-N!" "Praise God!" HAL-LAY-LOO-YAH!"
Surely you all can come up with something hilarious about the Seventh-Day Adventists...
I am afraid that there is nothing hilarious anyone could say about us Seventh-Day-Adventists, at least with regards to embarrassing newcomers. We have perfected the art, issued a serious of handbooks on the topic, and are herewith officially claiming copyrights to Embarrassing Newcomers.
And this being a copyright thing, I should not tell you what we actually say or do, but I think I can give away a few of the responses of new people in our churches. So this is some of the things they say:
1. But I did come to your church last sunday.
Oh, you mean, it´s never open on a sunday?
2. I really didn´t know it was porc. I thought it was a tofuburger.
3. I have no idea how this bottle got into my garbage bin.
Somebody must have put it in there.
4. These are not mine. My sister keeps putting them into my bag when her husband comes home, he thinks she didn´t start again after the kid was born. I need to talk to her.
For LDS (Mormons)
Have a group of elders at the front door, adorned in Dan Post boots, Roper jeans, and Stetson hats all refering to the Book of Mormon as "JESUS: THE WESTERN."
At a Mega Church:"For Those Of Us Who are Visiting Today,Please Raise Your Hands and You'll Receive A Coupon Good For 10%Off at Our'Garden Of Eatin''All You can Eat Buffet!!
Also,be sure To Stop By Our Book store Where after Today's Service;Our Pastor,A Former Dolphin Trainer at Sea World-San Antonio;Will sign Copies of His Inspirational Best Seller'A Porpoise Driven Life'!!".
And our pastor's family therapist brother, will be giving his lessons on family discipline at aquariums, entitled "Flogging the Dolphin: Showing Your Love With Your Belt"
For the next edition, be sure to add the tactic ACTUALLY experienced a few years back by a friend of mine--no one else sat in her pew, in the pew in front of hers, or the one behind it.
Episcopalians...I'm guessing....
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