I'm an Episcopalian and we love visitors! We do all we can to make our sometimes-complicated shuffle of prayer books and hymnals understandable to visitors and we have an area at the back of the church for children who get restless.....we know they sometimes need to leave the sanctuary to respect the experience of the other congregants, but we do what we can to help them stay with it.
We're one of the few demoninations that welcomes anyone to participate in our whole service. We USED to invite 'all baptised Christians' to the altar to take communion, but now we invite anyone who wishes to join us. People can come up and receive a blessing but no bread and wine, or just bread or just wine or both. While the words say "the Blood of Christ" and "the Body of Christ", we also acknowledge that this ritual can simply represent to someone a communal meal.
We welcome singing or any other participation that a visitor may feel is appropriate, but we also try to be as understanding as we can that some people are there to participate in other ways than for worship (we're in a heavily-trafficked tourist area). We post signs at the entrances with some basic directions like remembering to keep silence to facilitate private prayer and to turn off cell phones.
The only thing I can think of that hasn't been covered is that some churches ask that services be respected as temporal and fleeting....no recording of music, no photography or videography. We've occasionally had issues with brides wanting a video of the ceremony, for example. I think we've relaxed those rules a bit these days, but some congregations take it very seriously.
ETA: We do get a bit grumbly about the "twice-a-lifers" who show up in a white dress as a baby to be baptised and then some years later in a pine box. And, gasp, even worse the twice-a-year Christians who sit in 'our' pews for Christmas and Easter, but that's not really where are hearts are. We welcome folks who are there to see us as a curiosity....who knows when a message about social justice or compassion might not just take root?
We're one of the few demoninations that welcomes anyone to participate in our whole service. We USED to invite 'all baptised Christians' to the altar to take communion, but now we invite anyone who wishes to join us. People can come up and receive a blessing but no bread and wine, or just bread or just wine or both. While the words say "the Blood of Christ" and "the Body of Christ", we also acknowledge that this ritual can simply represent to someone a communal meal.
We welcome singing or any other participation that a visitor may feel is appropriate, but we also try to be as understanding as we can that some people are there to participate in other ways than for worship (we're in a heavily-trafficked tourist area). We post signs at the entrances with some basic directions like remembering to keep silence to facilitate private prayer and to turn off cell phones.
The only thing I can think of that hasn't been covered is that some churches ask that services be respected as temporal and fleeting....no recording of music, no photography or videography. We've occasionally had issues with brides wanting a video of the ceremony, for example. I think we've relaxed those rules a bit these days, but some congregations take it very seriously.
ETA: We do get a bit grumbly about the "twice-a-lifers" who show up in a white dress as a baby to be baptised and then some years later in a pine box. And, gasp, even worse the twice-a-year Christians who sit in 'our' pews for Christmas and Easter, but that's not really where are hearts are. We welcome folks who are there to see us as a curiosity....who knows when a message about social justice or compassion might not just take root?
Granted the guy should have been more cautious but I just think it is never appropriate to humiliate someone publiclly. "get out of the way" is kinda vague. Especially in a day and age where people take 100s of pictures at every little event i think it really the responsibility of the church to say "you may do this and this and this from here and here and nothing else. Before my childrens baptism I had someone more or less draw an imaginary outline on the floor for my photographer. She was not Orthodox so didn't really know where to be and where not to be.
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