By John Cole

People today are moving house more frequently than in the past, and often have to move long distances. Thus there is an increasingly urgent need for local churches to make the acquaintance as soon as possible of people who have newly arrived in the locality.

Contacts are best made ecumenically and can be offered on behalf of the community as a whole.

The best piece of communication is, of course, the friendly knock at the door by someone who lives just down the road. But it can be useful if some interesting and informative literature can be handed over at the same time.If nothing else, give people the web site address!

The literature can be a simple but professionally designed sheet giving details of local churches, or it can extend into a full directory of local community facilities. In some places local tradespeople combine with community groups to operate the scheme known as the ‘Welcome Wagon’.

These arrangements naturally work best where most people are owner-occupiers and church members can be briefed to watch the ‘For Sale’ boards. In tenanted property the only option is to watch for removal vans or new curtains!

The whole ministry of welcome at the church door needs far more care and attention than most local churches give it.

Non-regular attenders are liable either to be ignored or smothered!

Printed information packs can be useful as part of the process of helping new people to feel that they belong.

But the real work involves thinking imaginatively what it must be like for a stranger approaching the church door for the first time ~ and then seeing what this implies both for the layout of our churches and the way our congregations behave.

Many who are not regular worshippers will happily visit historic churches as tourists.A ministry to tourists seems to be an increasing responsibility for anyone who has responsibility for a historic church building.

This is another major area where communication takes place - for good or ill!

How unwelcoming it is - and self-defeating in terms of what church buildings are for - when a historic and beautiful church is locked and there is no indication who to approach for a key!

The ideal, of course, is when churches are open and staffed - a possibility which even country churches could consider for well-publicised short periods on summer weekends.

What the visitor then takes away from the church matters a great deal. A good guide book will do far more than tell the history or explain the architecture; it will convey something of the faith and devotion of those who still use the building for Christian worship.

whether they are a series of recitals or a flower festival may well bring into the church building many who do not use it for worship - even if your church is not on the regular tourist beat. What they see around them will communicate a great deal to them about the building’s regular occupants.

Hopefully the feeling will be conveyed of somewhere lived in and loved, where God is glorified. But this in itself means work - work to maintain the building, to equip it, to mount displays, to provide a bookstall, to use visual images as part of worship and so on.

The danger is that the visitor will gain an impression either of sterility (a church well-polished but barren) or neglect.

It must always be clear that a church is more than a recital chamber or an exhibition hall.