Fellowshipping vs Friendship

I did some hometeaching earlier this week among a couple of "less-active" folks on my roster.  I put "less-active" in scare quotes there, because it turns out they have been intermittently sitting in on some sacrament meetings elsewhere in the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area.  One guy on my list prefers the quiet anonymity of personal worship that comes from arriving a couple minutes late to a large ward where no one knows you, to then bounce a couple minutes early before anyone tries to "introduce" themselves.  He even got married recently, to a non-LDS gal who, though she's actually expressed interest in the Church, is hesitant to attend services, because of all the attention she'd surely get from well-meaning people tripping over each other to "fellowship" her.

Another gal I hometeach said something similar--she's been away from the Branch all summer long due to some job commitments as a Social Worker; but though she finally has Sundays free again, she's been hesitant to return to her home-branch, since it would inevitably entail a bunch of unwanted attention from an entire congregation rushing forward to "fellowship" her--ironically to make her feel "welcome."

And I can't say I blame them, either.

This is a tricky balance to strike, because the grand focus of most of our missionary and "reactivation" efforts have been predicated on the assumption that our great stumbling block right now is that we aren't friendly enough, that we have been insufficiently inclusive, that people shaky in the faith don't feel fully "welcome" to our services.  "Every new member needs a friend" declared President Hinckley a few years back, and indeed, it is vitally important that everyone who comes to Church feels like they have a friend there.

But the key word here is friend.  Not "fellowship."  And I have of late increasingly come to conclude that the two are not synonymous.

"Friend" implies a kindred spirit of sorts, someone you feel comfortable around, with whom you can be yourself.  You can let your guard down around your friends.  "Fellowship" however implies a duty, a performance, an act, one that, although it may be entirely well-intentioned, still has a subtle flavor of artificiality about it, as though we were just going through our good-member-check-list in vigorously shaking hands with every bewildered new face that seats itself among us.  These are the sorts of behaviors that cause visitors to instinctively put their guards up, not down--that is, "fellowshipping" does not necessarily lead naturally to friendship at all.

Even if we're not fully conscious of it, we can all tell when someone's being insincere, I've found, when we are saying hi merely because everyone else is too, not necessarily because we're genuinely happy to see them.  Salesmen do the same thing, and the last thing we need in this church is more salesmen.

But even if our fellowshipping efforts are wholly sincere and genuine (as indeed they often are), there is still the fact that large swaths of humanity swarming about your person really only works if the newbie in question is highly-extroverted, and derives energy from being around fellow humans.  The introverted, for whom constant social interaction is a drain, are similarly drained by all these "fellowshippers"--indeed, few things could be better calculated to keep them away.

Again, this is a tricky balance, one with no clean solution: some visitors really do need to know that everyone will help them feel welcome, while others really do need to know that they can just sneak in the back and commune quietly in the solace of their soul.  Some folks we make a space for them by scooting over and giving them a place to seat next to us; others we make a space by literally giving them as much space as possible, allowing them to be able to approach the gospel at their own pace, on their own terms.

I guess all I'm really calling for is for us to cease the one-size-fits-all approach to "fellowshipping," wherein we march up to every fresh face, shake their hands, and ask them a series of invasive personal questions as though we were all on a first date.  Avoiding that means learning to read people, to pick up on their body language, dress, and behavior; if someone looks wide-eyed and uncomfortable, shuffling along unsure of themselves, then in all likelihood what they really do need is a friendly smile and a warm welcome; but if they are keeping their head down, avoiding all eye contact and making every effort to sit down as inconspicuously as possible, then perhaps leave them alone for now, and maybe wait to quietly introduce yourself till after the meeting.

This approach to "fellowshipping" requires much more careful attention, empathy, and respect for boundaries; that is, it requires us to actually think about them, rather than about us.  In other words, it requires us to behave like a friend, not a fellowshipper, which is not the same thing.