Hugging Is a Mindset

I like to think of our church as a place with angel hugs all around.  An angel is a divine messenger.  It seems to me, that we are divine messengers of God’s loving embrace all around the church.

• Many people throughout the community have felt the tender embrace of a Presbyterian Lay Pastor in a hospital room or at the bedside of a dying loved one. 
• Many have built warm friendships at our community meals; or have experienced supportive comfort, counsel, or material assistance from the deacons or church staff. 
• The Presbyterian Preschool, Music School, Sunday School, and youth groups are the source of many warm embraces of Christian love.
• Our adult ministry’s Christian Life Learning Center is providing great classes with more planned.
• Our services of worship, with all their inspirational qualities, offer help and hope for many.
• Our session has recently endorsed the founding of the Samaritan Center of the Jersey Shore which will offer hope, healing and health through services of counseling, consultation, and education with a deep sensitivity to the body, mind, spirit and community. 
• We are also getting very close to bringing on staff a new Director of Family Ministries.  
• And this is just a small taste of the many ways we are sharing angel hugs all around.

Let’s spend the year thinking of all sorts of new ways to hug.  I like to think of a hug as loving warmth that exceeds expectations.

Everyone in our church hugs differently, and that’s the way it should be.  Jack Mitchell says that “some people are comfortable giving a bear hug.  Others recoil at anything too physical.  That’s fine.  Those people like to shake hands, or give a high five, or look you in the eye, or send personal notes.  You adopt the hug that works for you.”

Once as an exercise, Mitchell sat down and drew up a list of different hugs he could offer at his clothing store.  He got to thirty-three before he started to get a cramp in my hand.  Some of the ones he wrote down were:  “Offer someone a beverage or snack, carry their bags to the car, send a birthday card, send an anniversary card, remember names, sew on a button, press pants, call when you say you will, send flowers on a holiday, send flowers after a big sale call and invite to lunch at the store, make reservations for someone at an exclusive restaurant, get tickets to a ball game or the theater, open the store after hours for private appointments, have a liberal return policy that allows you to give money back with a smile, call another store to get something you don’t have, show product knowledge, smile, resolve credit issues instantly, give a firm handshake, look a customer in the eyes as a friend who cares, exchange business cards, telephone someone who’s sick to show you care, send an email (especially to people who travel internationally), listen.”

What would a Hug list look like for our church?

Comments

[Coach outlet]

I'm very excited to be coming to BlogPaws and I must have been distracted by my inspiration