I was a Church Visitor.

I visited a church this weekend.

No one said hello.

Even though we waited around for nearly 20 minutes after the service was over.

No one said hello.

That should not happen. It sparked a brief discussion on the Evangelism Coach Facebook Page.

Wise church leaders will do some advance preparation related to hospitality in expectation of new visitors.

Many wise leaders know that a regular review of your systems is a good way to make sure things flow smoothly.

Inertia and inefficiency always creep in, and churches are no different.

Your systems and processes for welcoming visitors can always be improved, and decaying systems can be refreshed.

Do a regular review of your church visitor welcome

Whether that is you as

• Senior Pastor
• Head of the Greeter / Ushers.
• The leader of your church hospitality ministry
• Chair of the committee that oversees your church welcome ministry.

Do a regular review of your church hospitality systems and processes.

I suggest quarterly, or in connection with any kind of big event that your church is launching that is designed to increase the number of first time visitors.

Maybe do a more frequent review with your Greeter Teams and Welcome Center

I was with a “tall-steeple” church this past weekend and they do a brief review every Sunday of their hospitality experience.

Wise hospitality ministry leaders will

• Review their facility navigation
• Review their current facility appearance.
• Review their church visitor follow-up process.
• Review their status of current hospitality ministries
• Review their current church greeter process / volunteers
• Review their process to how they get church visitor contact information.

Doing this kind of review will often reveal a bunch of

• We need to fix this.
• We ought-a
• We should have . . .

The Fruit of a Review.

One fruit of the review is to discover areas of potential friction (that which makes your visitors feel uneasy, or even your volunteers feel uneasy) and remove it.

This review simply removed some rough edges that might make a visitor feel confused, disoriented, or a little uneasy.

It was an area of incremental improvement.

Each time your team does a review of it’s systems,

• Tweak what has broken
• Think of what might be missing and provide it
• Think of how to improve your welcome and greeter process.

If you need help, my ebook on How to Welcome Church Visitors: www.WelcomeChurchVisitors.com provides you with a flowchart to help you think through the entire typical visitor process (Chapter 7).