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List Price: $3.99 | | Publisher: Concordia Publishing House
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Editorial Review:
When is the best time to seat a latecomer? How can you be friendly to visitors without overwhelming them? What should you do if someone faints during the worship service? It's natural to have these qu
Welcome to Our Church: A Handbook For Greeters And Ushers Reviews:
Way too old with outdated ideas. 
2009-07-18 - There are two things that really bug me about this.
1. Old practices. Stuff in here may have worked a long time ago, but some of the "practical advice" is no longer useful. One example is that the author says "don't make the visitors stand out" but then she says "put a visitor name tag on them so that everyone knows they are a visitor." It's also full of vocabulary that has begun to fall out of normal use, as another commenter has pointed out.
2. Bossy. This book is full of "you do this" "you do that." It's written as if its in the imperative mood and the author is ordering you to obey. The tone didn't sit right.
Now, there is still some good advice in this book once you get past this. She urges greeters to notice people, rather than just shake a hand. Take the time to notice people who appear to have a spiritual need that week.
The book is also full of questions that readers can answer to learn how some of this applies in their context. In this sense, it can be a useful study guide.
The book doesn't cover how to recruit greeters for a ministry or even why have them. Rather, it gives some ideas that can be useful for training.
I wouldn't get multiple copies for any team of greeters, but lift a few things out for my own training sessions.
Rather archaic... 
2006-09-22 - I suspect that this book might have been perfectly applicable for most American churches in the 1950's. And I know that there are many churches who still function as if it is the 1950's. But this book is horribly out-dated, as evidenced by repeated usage of words like nave, narthex, and acolyte. How many churches still have something called a worship folder and post hymn numbers on the wall in the front of the church? If you worship in Walnut Grove on "Little House on the Prairie," then this is the book for you!!
In moving past this admittedly sarcastic opening, let me clarify that I'm not here to criticize traditional worship styles. My wife and I often lead the traditional service at our church, and we love the history of the church in the midst of the exciting contemporary influences that have arisen over the past decade or so. The problem with this book is not that it references more traditional forms of worship but that it almost assumes that these practices are the norm. Just as there are still many churches who practice church like it was practiced a generation or two ago, there are many who have changed things dramatically, a fact that seems to be ignored in this book.
Not all is lost, however. I was pleased to read some solid biblical foundations for the roles of ushers and greeters in the church. Schroeder's theological and philosophical explications are helpful, and I plan to use some of this information to inspire and challenge our usher and greeter teams. However, the practical tips simply do not apply to how we (or most churches that I've visited in the past twenty years) do church.
I had hoped to buy multiple copies of this book to pass along to our ushers and greeters. Instead, I'll be pulling a few snippets of useful information to pass along and looking for another resource that is written with more contemporary practices in mind.
