Church SWAT Teams

Today marks three weeks since we drove through the Midwest avalanche to set up home in Greenville. Life seems much less chaotic now, with the furniture arranged, the books on shelves, Mulder and Scully upon their own shelf to guard us from paranormal deviance, and very few boxes left in sight. Truly, I'm thankful for everything since moving here, including the welcoming people we've met so far.

Speaking of which, people down South have got us Northerners beat in the "church visitor" department. Holy crap, it's intense, but awesome. There's like a SWAT team at every place we've visited; you can practically see the guns of friendship drawn, ready to unleash streams of welcoming bullets at anyone with a new face. At one church that met at a YMCA, a person saw us walk through the door and literally said, "You're new! This way!" and proceeded to guide us through the halls to the greeting area with tea and coffee (staples for any visitor SWAT team).

One church, however, had an actual coffee bar, with five Keurigs in a row and a type of barista. The rest of the foyer looked like a French salon with bright colors of red, white, and orange. The SWAT team took our information on iPads and handed us free coffee passes. One church had a SWAT team of one, with a few recruiters throughout the evening. We'd stopped by a church's weekly community meal and I immediately spotted the SWAT leader, the pastor's wife who introduced us to several others.

Desperate for something to do in the morning during the week, last week I swung by a Methodist church downtown that serves free coffee and donuts. So, I drove by and there's four guys in the cold (here, 25 degrees is next to trekking the Yukon), waving at joggers and passing cars. That was probably my favorite way I've seen a church bringing in people because it seemed to WORK. A lot of the visitors were members already, but I saw a few other new people stop by to grab coffee and talk with the, of course, super friendly people throwing donuts at whoever looked their way.

Please don't think I'm making fun of these places...well, okay, I am a little, but really I just find this variety of openness fascinating. Especially because it's not the kind of fake "Oh, you just moved here? Cool, cool..." as the speaker slowly sinks into their previous conversation with another church veteran. The SWAT teams have been as sincere as seems possible. Last night was probably the most natural SWAT team , as we stopped by a small group at Seacoast that's in its beginning stages, so a bunch of other newer people were there. Not to mention some really funny people that seem to be looking for actual relationships with others, which is exactly what I want.

And it was the first place where a SWAT expert just avoided the small talk and said, "Hey, so you just moved here three weeks ago? We should hang out, the four of us. Yeah, here's my number." Several others seemed open to just getting to know each other, too, even just to go to a movie or grab a stack of pancakes.

Isn't that how making friends should be, after all? One of my favorite "friendship beginnings" was with Jacqueline, one of my best friends for life. At least, I remember being in third grade when we were in the bathroom and had the following conversation:

"Hey, you're Heather, right?"
"Yeah, and you're Jacqueline?"
"Uh-huh, but I just go by Jacque. You wanna be friends?"
"Sure!"

Or something like that. And that's one thing that shouldn't change, whether you're nine or 27...being able to be like, "Hey, you're cool. Let's be friends." Because, really, if the other person's weirded out enough to be all, "Dude, I'd rather have a combined total of 90 minutes of small talk before committing to something like that," they're probably not a kindred spirit.

Personally, I much prefer this SWAT team method I've seen. It can be overwhelming, even when you begin recycling the same introductions from place to place, but it's nice to know that you're seen.