(note: Exact timing of this moment in the order of service differs depending on church)
The worship service has just ended with minimal "shouting" which means there will be no "break-out service" whereby preaching would have been omitted from the service order. All this means that you know you are in it for the long haul.
The elder/pastor/charismatic personality strides up to the microphone and greets the audience with a smile. He welcomes the guests in attendance and then ......it happens......
"Take the next few minutes to greet your brother and sister around you and tell them you're glad to see them in the house of the Lord."
The next two-three minutes are some of the most exciting two-three minutes you will have all week. And it's not that the "meet and greet" is overly fun in and of itself, but the moment becomes fun in consideration of theserious context of the church service which surrounds the meet and greet.
In some services it seems like a gift straight from Heaven.
Remember if you will, when you were at school as a child. You are there to learn, but everyday in the midst of the chaos that was school, you looked forward to that one fifteen minute time slot in your day whereby all your anxieties and worries of the perils of elementary education are wiped away because you have: RECESS! And while that recess is only fifteen minutes, you make sure you enjoy every second of that time.
The "greet your neighbor" time during church is the exact equivalent for church service. It's like a miniature recess for people in their Sunday formals.
I am so excited during "this recess" that I'll act like anyone's best friend during this time and greet you with an over-enthusiastic smile and a semi-meaningful "how are you?"
However, there is one rule during the meet and greet: Always answer the "how are you question" with a positive answer. If a person answers the "how are you" question with a negative response like "not-so-good" or even a pitiful "okay" then you are violating chief rule number 1 of the meet and greet.
Further the perpetrator of the rule should know full well that he/she should not come to expect pity from the questioner since this is a meet and greet and not a therapy session. It's recess people!
Apologies to the non-social people who dread the meet and greet simply because they hate having conversations with no depth for two-three minutes
OK so during the MEET and greet time at our church...I am like ALWAYS the last person BACK to my seat to finish greeting people...I know hard to imagine that...LOL!!!
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