CEDAR FALLS, IA — Nine years ago, I volunteered to coordinate the First Community Church welcome team because I believed in the ministry of radical hospitality. I still do. What I no longer believe in is the back of the visitor card.

We print 200 of them every quarter. Glossy cardstock. Full color. Pastor Doug approved a redesign in 2021 that added a third field asking how visitors found us. In four years, that field has been answered eleven times. Seven of those said “Google.” One said “God.” That one was laminated and is now in my desk drawer.

“We are not running a data collection operation. We are welcoming the image of God through our doors. But if you are the image of God, I would still love to know your email address.”

I want to be clear: I hold no bitterness. My team—Linda Hoffsteader, 61, and her husband Ron, 63—are the most faithful greeters in the denomination, possibly in the Northern Hemisphere. They remember faces. They remember names. They remember that the Brennan family prefers the left side of the narthex because of a draft issue nobody on facilities will address.

“The card isn’t really the point,” Linda told me once, handing a visitor a bulletin like she’d been waiting specifically for that person. She is right. I know she is right. I just wish she were a little less right so I could feel useful.

We are here every Sunday at 8:45. The cards are in the pew backs. The pen is attached to a string. You have no excuses. I say this in love.

At press time, a first-time visitor had returned the card with only a first name, a partial zip code, and a small drawing of a sun, which Linda has since framed.