Friendship is indeed a two-way street. This post does give perspective about the imperfection in our church and would likely be helpful to people vacationing or visiting new-to-them LCMS churches (although I doubt the readership of this post will get around to those people).

However, this post irks some in the way that it fails to address the log in our own eye, our church body's eye.
It may not be as apparent in the Lutheran-cultural "Meccas" of the midwest, but our version of welcoming and friendly often falls short of what people are looking for in a church community. Sadly, our Lutheran culture seems to influence the body of Christ being well connected inside a church building, but not outside it.

People are looking for meaningful relationships, friendships, the connectedness outside of the 2-3 hours in and around the church building every Sunday morning. Although we might have the friendliness to say hello, and greet people, too often those relationships with others in our church stop as soon as we leave our pews.
I see our pastors and people in ministry making gargantuan efforts outside of Sunday mornings to connect with others. But our culture and the people in our churches, myself included, haven't fully addressed spending time and building those deep, meaningful relationships with others in our church community. As soon as we close the Bible, the extent of our relationships ends. There's more to these people than what they believe or how much time they spend around the "fellowship hall."

Can we have more conversations, blog posts about how to get our church community to spend more time with others after church on Sunday?