Grace makes room for the kid who’s new to church and doesn’t know when to stand up.

Rooms develop rules that nobody writes down. When to stand, where to sit, what to say back, which parts everybody mumbles. If you have been there for years you cannot see those rules any more, which makes it easy to forget how exposed a new person feels while working out all of them at once. Grace, in a room like that, mostly means making the rules visible without making anybody feel stupid.

Find the person who clearly arrived recently this week and tell them quietly what happens next. Then sit with them, so they are not working it out alone.