Purpose

The church usher duties can be summed up in a few words – making people feel welcome at church! This is accomplished by assisting pastors and teachers with people management, such as passing out Order of Worship and Sermon Notes or helping people find a seat. The ministry of ushering is a crucial part of worship because it is one of the most visible ministries in the church. In Christ, you have received God’s unconditional love, and, in Christ, you are called to extend that same unconditional love to others. Although an usher’s love is no stronger than the love found in the whole congregation of the body of Christ, nevertheless the usher performs a major role in ensuring that people see and experience that love.

The outline below shows how to perform those duties. Please review this material carefully and feel free to ask any questions and bring up issues that you feel need to be addressed.

Responsibilities

• Concentrate on the people. Seat the people as near the front pews as it seems appropriate. The back seats can then be filled with latecomers. If people insist on sitting in certain places, let them be.

• Be alert to available seats and be ready to lead worshipers to the vacant seats. Approach with the phrase, “May I show you to a seat?” with a smile. Never usher worshipers to their seats by waving your hands.

• Humility is key in an usher. Ushers are required to be punctual and time conscious as they are required to be at church far earlier than the rest of the congregation.

• We should always offer to seat people, and while you are doing this, introduce new guests to someone and hopefully they will offer to come and sit with them. Don’t just offer them a seat, but find someone that can sit with them.

• Once service begins, especially when Pastor is teaching, it does not matter who it is, ushers need to seat everyone. People come in and look for their friends and wander around, and it is horribly distracting. Seat them. Tell them that in order to help cut down on distractions, you want to help them be seated.

• Please ask guests that have children if they would like to see our nursery then take them and introduce them to the nursery staff. Let the decision to leave their children in the nursery be theirs.

• Do not...

  • Force a hug when greeting

  • Separate families when seating them