We get a lot of visitors Sunday morning, especially on Easter Sunday, and they are always welcome. Most of them, however, don't make their presence known to us. Which I understand and sympathize with. When I visit another church I try to stay invisible, too. Which works, until we are asked to stand for the first hymn.

In some churches they make the visitors stand and introduce themselves. Which I believe must have been a practice started in Puritan New England as an act of public humiliation. So I refuse to participate in that ritual. I believe if a church wants to make visitors feel welcome, hospitality and good manners dictate that the members stand up and introduce themselves to the visitors.

All of this is to say that one Easter, some years ago, we had a visitor here who filled out a…