First Time Visitors: Don’t Scare Them Away

This picture shows the lanyard worn by our Information Host volunteers.  As you can see, it has a simple message — “Ask Me About Hope”.  We have these Hosts around the halls of Hope and greeting people as they pass by.  They are easily recognized, without being overbearing, as someone a visitor could approach with a question.

We talk a lot about visitors at Hope and how to make their experience as positive as possible.  One goal we have is to not scare them away.  I found this list today that gives 15 reasons why people will not return a second time to your church.  See if you can relate or better yet, if your church can relate:

1. No welcome from the parking lot to the pews.
2. Finding the right door to sanctuary appeared difficult.
3. People in the pews held on to their “good seats.”
4. Too many “churchy insider words” like doxology and introit throughout the worship experience.
5. No safe, clean nursery for the babies and toddlers.
6. No sincere greeting extended by pastors or members.
7. No warmth or hospitality extended.
8. Missing joy and a spiritual atmosphere.
9. No sense of family in the church community.
10. Very limited reaching out to outsiders or strangers.
11. Very few ministries or activities for youth or children.
12. Public recognition of guests that left them feeling uncomfortable.
13. Appears to be no vision or purpose for the congregation.
14. On Sunday morning, members and ushers seem focused on “member only” conversations.
15. No one invited them back.

(For full post click here)

This list emphasizes again the importance of reaching out and making people feel welcome without making them feel more uncomfortable than they already feel as a visitor.  When people come to visit, their antennae are fully tuned and looking for what this church is all about and if this church seems to fit them.  When I walk around on the weekend, my antenna is also fully tuned into looking for people who might be new.  These are people who seem to be looking around and grabbing material off the tables or walking like they are just not sure where to go.  I do my best to welcome these folks and see if they need some direction.  I’m tempted to connect with the familiar faces I see, but I try to resist that and look for the new folks.

I thought it was interesting that none of these on the list relate to the worship service (except # 4) and especially the impact of the sermon.  I think that relating with the pastor and the sermon is huge.  In fact another survey, “The National Survey of Megachurch Attenders”, stated these factors as to why people attend and stay with a church (specifically a megachurch).

What first attracted attenders were the worship style, the senior pastor and the church’s reputation.

These same factors also influenced long-term attendance, as did the music/arts, social and community outreach and adult-oriented programs.

So, I think the whole package comes into play — from being a welcoming place to a solid worshipping place.

See also — A Wired to Serve post from the past. “Greeting Not Freaking”

See also — “Is Your Church Calling Visitors by the Wrong Name?” When talking about the culture of the church, this blog asks this great question:

“Is the purpose of your church to serve as a social club for its own members?  Or is it in existence to welcome, embrace, and assimilate any newcomer that walks in the door?”

Connecting to Hope

My job around Hope is to see how we can best connect people into our ministry especially through membership and volunteering.  But we cannot connect people who never come and check us out.  So, we do many things to advertise our ministry here — a presence on the web, a sign leading onto our property, billboards around our city at various times throughout the year, Craig’s new radio spots, etc….  But the best advertisement is people telling people.  In fact just the other day, I was in a doctors office and the nurse asked me what I did for a living.  I told her that I was a pastor at Hope and she said that she had heard a lot about our church and really needed to visit.  She said that she had been involved in a church that split a couple of years ago and had been disillusioned with the whole church thing.  I told her that Hope is about that very thing.  We are a church for those who have not necessarily given up on God but have given up on Church.  I hope she comes and check us out.

Another thing that we have noticed about people telling people about Hope is that some of our best evangelist are members of other churches!!!  Maybe they are in a very traditional church and invite some friends to their church and it just does not click.  They will say, “What you need to do is to check out Hope Church.  They are very different.  I think you might really connect with what they are doing over there.”  And that evangelism goes both ways.  I have pointed people toward other churches in our city where I feel like they might connect better.  No church has the corner on the gospel market.  We are just communicating the good news in different ways.

Check out this insightful post by Ben Arment that really got me thinking about this issue of outreach.

1000 Awesome Vounteers

My head continues to spin from last night’s Volunteer Appreciation/Christmas Eve Signup/Training Dinner. (Catchy name ugh?) We had over 800 RSVPs and then over 1000 showed up!!  As you can see from this picture of Craig (Hope’s Senior Pastor), it was a packed gym.  You could feel the excitement in the air as we prepare to enter into a new phase of ministry here at Hope.  We will hold our Christmas Eve services (9 total) in our new sanctuary on December 22-24. 

Last night was a little crazy as we served all these folks — the kitchen crew was awesome.  When Jennifer (our cooking Queen!) heard that we had 800 RSVPs, she wisely planned for 1000.  The menu included delicious soups (seafood gumbo, chicken tortilla and vegetable beef), a wonderful caesar salad and a great assortment of desserts.

Here are some of the highlights from the evening:

1. The food!
2. Seeing the volunteers lined up to sign up for the Christmas Eve services as greeters, info hosts, elf crew (bathroom clean-up duty), outside coneheads (parking crew), inside coneheads (ushers), fire extinguisher team (safety first for the candlelighting), children’s ministry, etc….
3. Craig’s great words of encouragement to all these faithful volunteers.  His talk focused on a recent vacation he took with his family to Disney World.   He reflected on what we can learn about serving others from Disney’s commitment to all their guests.  (See previous post on Disney and a great read Be Our Guest)  He cast the vision with excellence as usual.  In speaking of the “Disney Magic” he pointed us to the even more magical message that we communicate here — the life-changing message of Christ.
4. The training sessions we had with the various teams went well.
5. The tours of the new lobby and sanctuary was a real treat for these volunteers.
6. Seeing the tour groups standing on the stage and praying for God’s work in this new sacred space.

What a great evening. 

The Lure of the Web

            

I am starting to get a few more people who come to our new member class –Introducing Hope — who have found us or at least first checked us out through our web site.  Just 2 or 3 years ago our web site —how can I say this — sucked!  We had a do over, and it is not perfect, but it is much better.  And we are striving to keep it up-to-date.  I ran across a reference to an article in USA Today at MondayMorningInsight.  Check out what they have to say about shopping for a church on the web—–

Across the country, fall is high season for “church shopping,” as people in search of a new faith community to call home set about the task of finding one. But that doesn’t mean they’re showing up, singing hymns, shaking hands and sampling doughnuts at a different church each week.

Instead, observers say, they’re visiting church websites and evaluating congregations — often without having actually met anyone at the church. And that has some church people worried that the practice of faith is getting ever more impersonal — and consequently less powerful — in an age driven by efficiency and impatience.

Church shoppers “used to have to go to the service, sit in the back row and watch,” says Tom Bandy, president of EasumBandy & Associates, a church consultancy. “The website has just replaced that. The color schemes, the formatting, the language, the music — those things powerfully reveal who they (in the church) want to come there and who’s going to be accepted there.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Assimilation – Connecting into the Life of the Church

Mark Waltz at Granger Community Church just blogged about an article in Outreach Magazine in which he participated in a discussion regarding assimilation. It is worth checking out. Read Mark’s take on it at his blog, Because People Matter and then check out the article — Rules of Engagement

Dang! It looks like Mark has made the front cover!!!! Looking Good!!!

But doesn’t this picture say “Cover Photo” better than the one above? Especially since this is “Elvis Week”!