Dear Sisters and Bros,
i am teaching a lesson in a few weeks about welcoming others into the church. I was considering drawing a scale on the board and having one end of scale represent an unfriendly person and the opposiate end of the scale be Jesus Christ. Jesus would be very friendly to a new person in the church. He would introduce himself, learn the newcomers name, smile and wave on future meetings, take an interest in the person, have a conversation wth that person from time to time, nod to that person if they passed in the hall and so on. An unfriendly person would do none of those things. I was thinking of asking the sisters to place themselves on that scale and to write a brief description about what they do now for new members at church, do they
1) frown, say 'oh no not another person! I hope they leave soon and never come back!'
2) ignore the person and hope they go away
3) smile and wave but otherwise make no contact
4) smile and introduce yourself and immediately forget the new persons name
5) smile, introduce yourself, remember persons name, thereafter smile and wave
6) smile, wave, introduce yourself, introduce others to the person, on next meeting have a brief conversation
7) introduce self, ask person to sit with you in church, try to become friends
the idea is to teach that at the very least, we need people to smile and wave and if you are doing this to do one step more.
My question is, what about those with social anxiety, what is reasonable to expect these people to do in terms of welcoming others to church?
is social anxiety the same as shyness? Can we expect these people to be friendly to others? What are your thoughts?