"I'd like to come to see the church there, in action!"
Really? Why?
"Ummm… to ummm, well…"
Maybe to get ideas to take back home? Please don't come. Jesus isn't like that. He can't be franchised - only loved.
Maybe just to experience "the church?" Leave your Nikon camera and Bermuda shorts at home. ("Oh look Marge! Come see the 'church life!' Over there - look!") Tourism and "community hopping" is a spectator sport that is encouraged by pretenders and demi-popes and marketeers, but if someone, somewhere, something, anywhere is for Real - recommending or allowing anyone to come to look at anyone but Jesus is just one more gimmick and counterfeit. Don't let anyone sell you that bag of spoiled groceries. That's not Him.
Perhaps one would want to come to judge, or critique. Or, perhaps it's all a game to play - a kind of religious chess game that intrigues them and they would like to dissect how the "game" is played where you are. Don't let them come. No one has the right to slice and dice God's family in the vege-matic of their proud minds.
Do they collapse "at the name of Jesus?" Do they REVERE Him and His Hand and His Work - or is it something for them? A platform? A curiosity? A fad? A self-serving way to fulfill their loneliness, or find a "spouse?" Is it, to them, a "home school support group" or "a child-raising seminar coming to a neighborhood near you?" That is utter nonsense.
No way can one be welcomed with such ulterior or sinful motives. Do they love Him desperately, or sincerely desire to do so, at any personal cost? You need to know. And they need to know. Jesus can't be found in ANY of those other places, no matter how many miles they've traveled to "see the show" or how many oceans they've swam across in order to visit.
Jesus and His Life can't be found be external observance, according to the Master Himself. Until we help them get the heart right, they won't find HIM anywhere - and nothing else matters. We're NOT helping someone by letting them visit for the wrong reasons. Don't be sheepish or manipulated or carnally sympathetic in these matters. If they come in through the wrong door, they will end up in the wrong house. Those doors can never lead to a Place where THEY will find Him, even if everyone there is.