Forget theological training for a second. Forget evangelism training too. I’m not saying let’s ditch those by the way, I’m just saying I think we might need some even more basic training. This is the training that will probably determine, more than any other, whether your church will grow beyond the people you already have there. It is also the training that just about every person who is currently there now needs to do. That training is the art of walking up to people and holding a conversation.

Now, let me be honest, I am not great at this. I am an introvert. I am also a busy pastor with a million things to do at once as soon as I cross the lintel of the church doors. I also have an inbuilt, nagging voice – probably a combination of just being English but also years of being told I am rubbish with people – that makes me assume nobody will want me to talk to them and that I am imposing myself upon them if and when I do. I am very aware of not wanting to impose myself on others. Sociologists and anthropologists call this ‘negative politeness’.

Negative politeness is a very English trait. It is why English people say ‘sorry’ all the time and even apologise for daring to engage you just to ask an essential question that is entirely to your benefit. Negative politeness is negative in the sense that is does not positively engage you, and hedges any effort to do so, but it is just as much out of concern for you. It does not want to impose or infringe your privacy. It is negative in contrast to ‘positive’ politeness that thinks more in terms of active engagement, assuming a need to be included and welcomed in more overt ways (a more American trait and mode of welcome).

Both negative and positive politeness seek to be polite in culturally appropriate ways and both are genuinely thinking of others. Negative politeness, in that sense, is not altogether negative in reality. It is the reason why many British people do not speak to each other on public transport and how we manage to form invisible queues in pubs that operate on a code of looks, glances and maybe the occasional raised eyebrow. It’s all about not making a fuss, not drawing attention to oneself and not imposing yourself on others as all those things would invade other people’s privacy and cause them concern. It would be deeply impolite.

The problem is, negative politeness is a killer in church. Almost everybody who comes to your church – especially if they are new – expects people to talk to them. Most people do not want to stand around like lemons looking lost and sheepish for too long. Even in England, given a choice between standing in an unknown building full of strangers, on your own and feeling out of place or someone actively coming up to you and striking up conversation even very awkwardly, the vast majority of very reserved, ultra-private English people would still prefer the latter. Whilst ‘don’t engage’ is the order of the day in most settings, there are a few places where the normal rules don’t apply. The pub (specifically the bar area), for example, has its own rules and the church operates with a slightly different set of cultural rules too. Never, ever, ever talk to strangers on the bus; always, always, always talk to strangers at church!

I think lots of churches have cottoned on to this fact. People expect to be spoken to at church. Lots of us are still not very good and doing much about that, but we are at least aware that we probably should. Training people to welcome others very often stops at ‘go and say hello and get the person a cup of tea’. And so, let’s say you have gone to a church where they are aware people should come and speak to you. Someone probably will come and speak to you. Then often ensues an incredibly awkward, cringeworthy interaction with someone who hasn’t learnt the art of making conversation. Whilst it is better than being left alone like Billy No-Mates, it is only marginally better.

Perhaps this is live in my mind because we have to have these very discussions with my son, who is autistic and doesn’t always communicate and interact as culturally expected. For example, he might have some information to impart about whatever his specialist interest is and will keep you there until he has finished imparting whatever details he has deemed important. He is unable to read non-verbal (sometimes even verbal) cues that the other person is not interested. He has little understanding that not everyone is interested in what he is interested in, they are just being polite. In turn, he has no problem showing zero interest in things they may have to say on which he is not really interested. He has no sense that not asking any follow up questions, not engaging with the thing they have said, implies a serious lack of interest, is impolite and – more specific to our particular concern here – just a deeply unhelpful way to grease the wheels of conversation inasmuch as it does nothing to help you to have one at all.

I mention this because an awful lot of conversations after church feel essentially quite autistic inasmuch as they follow this pattern. Someone knows they probably should come up and talk to the stranger (that’s the rule and we like rules). So, they engage you but don’t really have anything to say specifically. They also don’t come armed with a set of potential questions that might help grease the wheels of conversation. Things like, ‘where are you from?’ and ‘what do you do?’ and basic stuff like that. Those who have – after years of practice – learnt the script might reel off these questions, but they don’t have the mental alacrity to draw any links in their mind and, once the information has been gathered, conversation ends. When someone tells you where they’re from, that’s that with nothing more to say. Someone tells you what they do, ‘oh right’ and then onto the next scripted question until you run out. And this is, frankly, the better ones. It is often painful and fails the most basic criteria of being described as an actual conversation.

We need to train our people in how to engage people and how to actually welcome them, minimally helping them have a proper conversation. They need to know that people on their own need to be engaged, questions are good (but there are other ways of starting a conversation too) and we can use the answers to those questions as jumping off points for further bits of conversation. ‘Where are you from… Is that right? My aunt lived there and I went on holiday there once. Have you been on holiday lately… Ah, lovely. We last went to… it was great…’ You get the picture. The art of being a good conversationalist – and you can learn this stuff – is about picking up on things people have said, drawing links and connections that allow you to share information with them, prompting further questions or points of interest that can be discussed further.

I know this stuff sounds super basic. I know it seems really stupid to sit here and encourage you to teach your people how to actually speak to people and have a normal conversation. But my experiences of UK churches is that we’re generally not very good at it! If you are going to prioritise some training in your church, can I encourage you to think seriously about teaching people how to have an actual, non-awkward, free-flowing conversation. You may just find it serves the mission of your church more than you might have thought credible or possible.