The last time I’ve gone up to welcome and introduce myself to a visitor at my church, she looked at me confused and said, “That’s nice. Did you get a new phone?” One of my friends came up and explained, “You have to read her phone, she’s telling you something.” Then the lady understood that I was talking to her through my phone, so she got her glasses out and read, “Hello, my name is Abigail. What’s your name? I’m so glad you came back to visit our church.” After that we had a good conversation.

Every conversation I have with a visitor starts awkwardly. I walk up smiling and, if I have a tract explaining that I can’t talk, I give it to them first and then I have them read my phone. I try to be myself and make the visitor feel comfortable talking to me. I have thought about what I would do if a girl I didn’t know came up to me smiling and gave me her phone and a tract. I hope I would be gracious to her and talk to her like a normal person.

I enjoy talking to people at church, but sometimes I just want to sit in my pew and watch everybody else talk to other people. I do that sometimes, but mostly I go talk to people and try to encourage them, whether we have a short or long conversation or I just give them a hug. I have an excuse to just sit in the pew and not talk to anyone and maybe you do, too. I don’t know. Most people I know don’t have an excuse. When I was little, I was taught to initiate conversations with people, so I could make kids feel comfortable around me. But not all kids had the patience to wait for me to type and talk to them, so I would go talk to adults when I was at church and they became my “friends.”

So, next time you go to church, may I challenge you to talk to someone you normally don’t talk to or haven’t talked to in a long time. You never know—it might just make their day!

Hebrews 10:24-25 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.