04.05.08

Name tags?

Posted in Gene Cornett at 10:33 am by Gene Cornett

Many of you know that I am a book person. Kat has accused me of trying to take over our home with them, or trying to make the house look like a library. I’m still trying to figure out why that would be a problem. Anyway, one of the things that happens is that I acquire a lot of books that I’m convinced I must have for the sake of the kingdom of God! Sometimes, ok more than sometimes, a book gets shuffled to the background and I forget about it for a long time, or forever.

This morning I came across one of those as I was looking for something else. I read an idea that I couldn’t resist sharing. The book is, try not to yawn, “The Multiple Staff and the Larger Church” by Lyle Schaller. I know that many will want to navigate to Amazon’s home page and immediately purchase the book. But try to restrain yourself long enough, to finish reading this short note.

Schaller defines a large church as more than 1000 confirmed members or averaging more than 200 in attendance. This only accounts for 15% of Protestant churches in North America. In commenting on the differences in large churches and small churches, he makes this observation:

“The larger the congregation, the more important it is for all members to wear name tags every Sunday morning. One reason is to help members know one another by name. A second reason is to help members identify and welcome visitors. A third reason is that name tags have important symbolic value. They symbolize the acceptance of the fact that this is a large congregation that expects strangers to be present every Sunday, and the regular use of name tags represents a ‘Welcome, stranger! This is my name’ attitude by the members.” p. 20.

This makes sense to me. A good friend of mine is the pastor of a vibrant church in Chesapeake that is a bit larger than Seaford. I had forgotten, but reading this reminded me that they do this every Sunday. Permanent name tags are made up for members and posted on boards in their fellowship area, and arranged by their small groups. A side benefit of this is that there would be a visual reminder of who was not present on a given Sunday based on who didn’t pick up their name tag. This could potentially help us to better care for those who are absent.

What are your thoughts? Would you wear a name tag every Sunday? What about the reality that members would have permanent looking tags, while guests would have handwritten ones? (My pastor friend, always handwrites his own tag so that his looks like a guest tag)

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Gene

P.S. The last two books I’ve purchased are Roberts Rules for Dummies, per a request in the business meeting Wednesday evening and The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity by Phillip Jenkins. The later one is fascinating. I’ll try to stick with it and not forget it.

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