I know - it's not easy visiting a new church for the first time. Sometimes you feel like a nonmember visiting a country club.

As pastor, I want to make visiting Southwest Family Fellowship an enjoyable experience, easy, stress-free, and relaxing. We designed SW Family to be "user-friendly" for people, whatever their background, including those who have never been to church before. If I were visiting a new church for the first time, I'd like to know what to expect, so here's a brief overview.

When You Arrive

When you arrive at SW Family Fellowship (at 8203 W. Highway 71) for one of our Sunday morning services (9:00 AM, 10:30 AM or 12:30PM) enter through the west entrance and find a parking space in one of the two lots on the property. Since we live in the beautiful and (mostly) sunny Hill Country of Central Texas, our foyer area is predominantly outdoors under a covered patio. Head for the wooden pergola and you'll be at the life center of SWFF. Grab a free cup of coffee and a bagel and make yourself at home. There will be a number of people sitting at the cafe tables visiting. It's a great place to catch up with friends. You should also run into some friendly people with name tags (we call them "greeters") that will greet you, answer any questions you have, and direct you to the auditorium.

If you have kids, the greeters can point you to the check-in center inside our Kids & Youth building for infants through 8th grade (which are also well-marked with clear signs). We take the safety of our children very seriously; all of our kids workers have passed state and federal background checks and you can pick up a welcome packet at the check in desk that explains all of our Family Life policies. We give vibrating pagers to parents of infants and pre-schoolers in case we need to get in touch with you during the service. If your kids are shy, they're welcome to attend the adult service with you (we'll post a warning if the days subject matter is adult in nature) but most kids really enjoy the First Look (0-5 years), Kidzone (K-5th), and Go (6th-12th) ministries. If you have elementary-aged kids make sure you join us for The Buzz, a fun-filled, interactive service for the whole family each Sunday from 11:50-12:20 in the main auditorium). It's where kids bring their parents to church.

When you come in the auditorium, you'll be given a copy of the bulletin which has the week's announcements and a description of the day's service. You'll notice the bulletin has a tear-off slip ("The Connection Card"), which is an easy way for us to get better acquainted; you can ask for any kind of information or assistance using the Connection Card. You'll notice that everyone is dressed comfortably, in anything from "office casual" to jeans and tennis shoes, shorts and sandals, it's all good. We're a pretty laid back place. Feel free to bring that coffee right on in to the service. I can assure you I'll have mine!

During the Service

The service usually begins with some upbeat music, followed by a welcome and introduction to the theme of the day's service. Then I (or another speaker, but usually me) will begin the message. I usually speak for about 30-40 minutes, and I do my best to make the messages interesting, enjoyable, and relevant to daily life. The message will be based on the Bible, and I will often include interesting quotes from contemporary people, songs, or movies. In fact, each year I do a month-long series based on popular movies from the last year. If I do my job right, you'll hear solid Christian theology in intelligent, understandable, relevant terms. Hopefully, you'll laugh a few times and maybe feel a tug at your heart, too.

I'll close the service about 75 minutes after it began (and believe it or not, the time will fly). I hope you'll come up and introduce yourself to me afterward.

After the Service

You will notice at the close of the service we pass a popcorn bucket to collect offering. This is a reminder to us of where we came from, spending our first 6 years meeting in a movie theater! We want you to feel welcome as our guest, with no pressure to give. Our regular attendees will put their contributions in the offering bucket to pay for our expenses and fund our local and global outreach programs. Even though we hope you'll simply be our guest on your first visit, we do hope you'll drop your Connection Card in the bucket, so we can send you any information you request. If you want to stay anonymous, that's cool too. Either way, we'd love for you to pick up a free gift out on the patio - an insulated mug with the church logo on it. Just something to remember us by (and maybe to drink your coffee on subsequent visits).

After the service, you'll pick up your kids from their rooms. Church is about God and worship, but it's also about community and friendship, so we hope people really experience warmth and friendliness at SW Family Fellowship.

That's about it. People constantly tell me that they really feel comfortable - "at home" are the words I hear most frequently. I hope you'll stop by this Sunday. And if you do, please come and say "hi", and tell me that you found out about SWFF on the Internet.

Thanks for checking us out.

Anthony Scoma