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?”

Greeting Not Freaking

This past weekend we received this comment regarding one of our zealous greeters:

“I love his passion and energy, but the greeter that wants to shake everyone’s hand kind of freaks me out a little. I keep thinking about the germs! I know some of that is my problem, ha. Maybe he can just smile and say hello?“

It is a great comment. This is a great example of why we do comment cards in the first place. We learned something that we were not aware of. These comments are our eyes.

But how do we respond? Do we say, “Sorry, but we are a friendly church. Deal with it!!!” Or “Just shake his hand and carry some hand sanitizer in your pocket!!” That is not exactly our response. Here is what I said:

“I read your comment from the weekend regarding an aggressive greeting issue. I want to say that I agree with you and am sorry that we made you feel uncomfortable. I think it is an issue of training, and I am going to work on that. As you know, we try to make Hope as welcoming a place as possible without making people feel uncomfortable. We do not slap name tags on folks. We do not make visitors stand up during the service. We do want people to feel welcome and yet, be as anonymous as they want to be.

With that in mind, our shaking hands policy has always been to shake the hand of someone who reaches out to shake your hand but to not initiate the hand shake.

Thanks for pointing this out. We are going to spread the word so we don’t freak people out”

Each church has to come to their own conclusion as to what best fits their culture when it comes to welcoming and greeting people who walk through their doors. As for me and my church, no shaking unless shaken upon — or something like that….

Over 700 Volunteers Poised for Christmas Eve Services

We have guests coming tonight through Christmas Eve — upwards to 20,000 depending on the weather.  It is so exciting to see folks come together to pull this off.  The above gifts represent a huge commitment taken on by numerous volunteers and staff to wrapping all these little presents .  We wrapped some 20,000 of them to be handed out as people arrive and used as an illustration during the sermon.  It is going to be wonderful.

And I am so grateful for the over 700 volunteers who will greet, make coffee, direct traffic, usher people around, sing, hang out with Children, rock babies….  They are awesome!!!

Yes, we have guest coming and we want them to feel comfortable and welcome as they hear and experience the love of God wrapped in this baby who became the Saviour of the world.

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.

Observation 101

A couple of weeks ago I was pulled aside by one of our members and walked to this location — the place where we usually have a Small Groups table.  I died laughing a this creative placement prank.

The sad thing is that I had walked past this trash can at least three times and never noticed that anything was out of place.

Don’t we do this all the time?  At home I walk past that same pile of junk on the floor that has been there for months.  I become oblivious of the cracked window pane or walk down the hallway and step over the large sack of dog food in stead of putting it away.

After a week I quit noticing my missing hubcap.

The list can go on and on.

We need to open our eyes around the church.  It should become second nature for all of us to look around with purpose — a ministry of observation.  Leaders should be trained to observe people and keep an eye out for out of place stuff.  How many times have we seen a wadded up piece of paper on the floor but stepped right over it and walked on.    Visitors not only notice that trash but they also notice the culture of people picking up trash instead of just walking past it.

Look for people to reach out to but as you look also notice the metaphorical garbage can trashing your small group ministry.  Let’s get it moved!

Over 14,000 Celebrate Easter at Hope

 

I also pray the you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the high place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 1:19-20

It was an amazing weekend at Hope with the parking lot pressed to the limit and people walking into our sanctuary looking for some answers and a chance to walk through a door of transformation. There was nothing magical about the doors but their IS something powerful about a resurrected life in Christ. Over 14,000 people came to hear this message this weekend with two services on Saturday and three on Sunday. The 10 AM service was packed with over 5,000. What an amazing sight and the energy in the room was electric.

I talked with a woman visiting from Boston who was struck by the friendliness that she experienced. It caught her off guard. She thought Big = Impersonal. She was so happy to be wrong and so am I. Way to Go Volunteers. Way to Go all Hope Members. Way to Go God!

Welcoming Environments

“What are you doing to create an environment that says to people, We KNEW you were coming and we were EXPECTING you!”

                 

This is a quote from a post by Scott Hodge.  He does a great job of relating a bad experience at a restaurant and seeing what we can learn about being churches that are truly welcoming.  One thing I have commented on is that coffee ministers to our sense of smell. (See First Impressions & Coffee) but Scott takes it to a different level when he says this:

“There’s no reason that churches should smell like Ben-gay and mothballs.  So we use Henri Bendel Scentports scattered throughout our auditorium using a scent called Firewood – which is a mix of birch, cedar, sandalwood with a slight hint of tobacco.  This fits the wood-beamed architecture of our auditorium perfectly.  (On a side note – please leave the flowery smelling potpourri at home.  And DON’T spray Lysol before starting a service.  That makes the room smell like someone just threw up minutes before people arrived.)”

Someone spilt one of those cheep flowery scent canisters in the office last week and it was smelling like the bathroom on a Greyhound Bus!!!!

Read the full post here.

First Presbyterian Downtown Memphis

Last week Laurie had an opportunity to speak at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Memphis. After a wonderful dinner, we headed up to the sanctuary where she talked about her ministry to refugees and immigrants in the city through Multi-National Ministries. She did an excellent job and was warmly received by the people there.

Rev. Bo Scarborough graciously turned on the lights to the huge stained glass windows and this is what we saw.

          

First Pres is the 2nd oldest church in Memphis. It was founded in 1828 when there were a mere 500 people who lived in the city. Now, 180 years later they are still serving downtown Memphis with the compassion of Christ.

With the traditional stained glass beauty of First Pres in my mind, I just read an interesting blog from Dave Ferguson about the unchurched and their perception about the look of the church facility. He made this observation:

“What if I told you that the average unchurched person would be more likely to walk into a cathedral than any contemporary facility when looking for a church? It’s true! When unchurched people were shown four pics that included two contemporary church designs, a church with a steeple and a cathedral the unchurched said they preferred the look of a cathedral by 2:1 over any other option.”

Interesting insight. I think I am drawn to a beautiful building both traditional and contemporary. But the key to whole thing is what happens inside!!!

Read the rest of Dave’s post here.

First Impressions & Coffee

                    

This past week I had another church contact me about our philosophy of coffee at Hope.  They had visited last week and saw that we had three coffee bars located throughout our campus serving free coffee. (Picture above of Hope’s South Foyer Coffee Bar) I told them that yes, it was free, but we have some jars out to accept any donations folks might want to give.  We serve over 350 gallons a weekend and have over 150 volunteers to pull this ministry off.  It is a huge priority and commitment for us.  Here is what I emailed this church as to why we do the coffee at Hope:

1. OUR MISSION:  Bottom line is that our mission is to be a church for the unchurched. Therefore, we are looking for ways to have the environment as positive as possible for folks who walk in our facility. We know that some people are entering the building with some preconceived ideas about church and can be coming in with some real painful experiences in their past. We want them to walk in and be touched by the positive experience.
2. CORE VALUE:  We want to achieve the unexpected. That is one of our core values here at Hope. We want them to walk away telling others what a great place Hope is. The first week they might not go back to work and tell others about the sermon — hopefully they will!! — but they might go and tell their friends about the coffee. “Man, you will not believe this but I went to church this weekend. Yes, I went to church, but the cool thing was this coffee bar. Right there in the lobby they had this coffee bar with all kinds of flavors — Dark Blend, Hazelnut, Vanilla, even a Southern Pecan! And to top it all off, you could take the coffee into the sanctuary!!!” (We have lids for the coffee that we encourage people to use. This cuts down on the spills.)
3. MINISTRY TO THE SENSES:  We are touching the senses. They drive in and see our Coneheads (parking lot attendants) welcoming them with a smile. They see how clean and inviting our facility is. They are touched by the friendliness of our greeters at the door. They walk in the door and immediately smell the freshly brewed coffee. They step up to the coffee kiosk and pour a cup of coffee and taste how good it is. They enter into the sanctuary and hear some great music and a message from God’s Word.
4. COFFEE CULTURE:  Coffee says many things in our culture today. Look at the impact of Starbucks. Here is what they say, “Starbucks Coffee Company provides an uplifting experience that enriches people’s lives one moment, one human being, one extraordinary cup of coffee at a time.” It is about the experience. It speaks of community. It helps people feel comfortable in an environment.
5. VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY:  What a great place to have people serve. Some of my best greeters are there making the coffee and interacting with folks who come up for a cup.

Those are some of my thoughts in why we do coffee at Hope.  Anyone have other ideas? 

 

By the way, we proudly use Memphis roasted Ugly Mug Coffee.  Click on the bag to learn more.

Excellence in the Details

Yesterday, while walking down the hall between services, I passed our Senior Pastor Craig, and he asked me if I had a minute to follow him.  He led me into the men’s bathroom and we stood in front of this sign.

He asked, “Can you see what is wrong here?”  I bit my tongue and did not say, “The sinks seem to out of order on this side.”  No, I said that it seemed to be a blue tape issue.  We should have displayed that sign without the blue tape showing — we should have rolled the tape, stuck it on the back and then taped it on the mirror. 

THAT IS CORRECT Craig said!  I breathed a sigh of relief for two reasons.  First, that I had answered correctly and second, that I was not the guilty party.  Although, to be honest, I probably would have done the same thing if I was in a hurry to get this sign up.

The lesson that Craig points out and lives out is that details matter — that we need to have our eyes trained to look at the details.  We need to constantly look for things that might be out of place or that could be improved upon.  We can become blinded to the “stuff” around the church that sits there week after week — out of place.  We can be in such a rush that we forget to stop and ask a simple question:  “Does this show excellence in the details?” 

How do things look around your church?  Maybe this Christmas season is a good time to look around and check for the excellence in your details.