Welcome Church Visitors

How Good Hospitality Grows Your Church

Two Embarrassing Events Make Visitor Feel Awkard

Too late for ChurchPart of the goal of reviewing your church hospitality systems is to remove potentially awkward events that might cause the church visitor to feel singled out or overlooked.

I was the mystery visitor to a nearby church at the request of the pastor.

I was free to pick any Sunday I chose and not let anyone know of my visit ahead of time.

Embarrassment #1

We visited the church on a bright summer Sunday morning.

We arrived 10 minutes late.

When we opened the sanctuary doors, we discovered it had been darkened like a movie theatre is before the film begins.

The bright light behind us invaded the intentionally darkened space.

It felt like 200 heads turned from the stage to see who the latecomer was.

On top of that, our eyes didn’t not adjust quickly enough.

This meant we stood there for several seconds, waiting to accustom ourselves to the room and find a vacant seat.

There were no greeters, no ushers, or any kind of volunteer to help us.

Embarrassment #2

This church practiced the custom of “passing of the peace,” that brief time in the service where many people try to greet as many people as possible in a limited amount of time.

However, this church took a usual 3-5 minute time and turned it into 10 minutes, so that members of the church could visit with their friends, catch up on the news, etc.

We watched as members

  • caught up with each other,
  • checked in on how the family is doing,
  • discuss the upcoming sporting event
  • planned upcoming meetings.

All of this meant that no one noticed us as visitors to their church

We sat in our seat for what felt like an awkward eternity, waiting for this to be over.

Lessons Learned:

I caught up with the pastor a few weeks later to share my experiences with him.

We brainstormed ways to help make sure these embarrassing moments don’t happen to another church visitor.

It was a great review for the pastor and by the time we finished, he found ways to remove those potential embarrassments from the experience of the visitors to their church.

Want to remove more friction?

Read about the ebook that I sell on this website.  You can read more about How to Welcome Church Visitors  here.

 

Case Study: Church Visit Christmas Eve 2012

PSLChurch

Our family was once again out of town for Christmas, visiting our family. It’s been something we have done for the last 5 years.

In fact, we have not celebrate a Christmas Eve service in our own church I think in the past 7 years.

Our travels allow us to be the first time church visitor on a regular basis, and this year was no different.

Choosing a church to visit

This year, we asked a friend for a recommendation. She’s unchurched, but she was glad to help us find a Christmas Eve service. She asked one of her co-workers, “who was religious,” for a recommendation.

We eventually received a name of a church that had “rocking music.” It was approximately 15 minutes from my parent’s house.

To find the location and directions, we checked out the church’s website. Their church website was up to date, with service times and locations clearly indicated on the home page. We got a good feel for what we might experience in our visit.

Their website also connected with their Facebook page, and from photos on that page, we saw active engagement in community service.

The website helped us feel like this might be a good place for us to visit.

Our Sunday Experience

The church has two morning services and meets in a public high school.    Their one evening service meets at a different campus.

We choose the first morning service.   Their website mentioned that all three services (including one in the evening) would be nearly exactly the same.

It appears about 400-500 people were in attendance that morning, and I noted it was a racially diverse crowd.

The music was rocking (as noted).  It was good, high quality, and covered four different genres for the multi-racial audience.

The music included traditional Christmas carols jazzed up in contemporary arrangements.

The sermon was simple yet profound, and easily accessible by believers and seekers alike.  The pastor did a great job in explaining biblical terms when needed.

Overall, the experience of Sunday with this church has inspired me to return for a second visit, and bring a friend from this area who is looking for a church.

The church hospitality experience

This church has chosen to use parking attendants to help facilitate the rapid entry and parking of cars.  I found this helpful as a first time visitor.

Exterior signage was simply signboards directing people towards children’s ministry and the church.  Since they rent a high school, more permanent signage was not allowed.

The door greeters smiled and passed out the bulletins. They seemed genuinely excited to have been part of their church.  Greeters wore lanyards with church badges on them.  In a church of this size, this helps designate “official people” approachable for questions if needed.

The church had placed ushers at major intersections in the auditorium to help guide people to seating and address any questions as needed.  Again, most wore a lanyard with a church badge making them easy to identify.

The church uses a connection card system for visitor contact information, and the pastor was clear about how to fill it out and take it to the welcome center tent for a free book.  He introduced the contact card with:

If this is your first time here, or first time in a long time. . . ..

The connection card wasn’t obligatory for us to fill out.  When I turned it in later, the teaching pastor was at that tent making small talk with people.

When it came time for Scripture reading, ushers were called upon to give out Bibles to people who didn’t have one with them.  While that was going on, the pastor mentioned that if you don’t have one at home, consider that Bible a gift from the church and you are free to take it home.

The church made prayer teams available in the space up front.  I appreciated how they were introduced:

All of us carry some huge burdens at time and we’d like someone to pray for us.  Even if this is your first time here, our teams are here to pray with you if you wish.  If you want some confidential prayer, simply come up here and seek out a team.

The keyword that caught my attention was “confidential.”  That shows tremendous sensitivity for church visitors.

What might I improve?

For the most part, I think this church has a great welcome experience.

While it is true that no one engaged us in conversation, we didn’t expect it in a church of this size.  The size of the crowd was large enough that we didn’t feel we stuck out at visitors.

Yet the church was clear about simple ways we could engage in small talk if we wanted to.

My only suggestion for this church would be a small banner hanging on the tent that was welcome center to clearly designate that tent as the welcome center.

Case Study: How hard can it be to connect with a church?

CantGetThereIn the past few months, our family has faced a temporary life transition.

We have temporarily relocated for period of four months, away from our church, away from our social networks, and away from our friends.

Our move is only temporary, so we made a decision to pick a church where some friends attend and just stay there.

This puts us in a real life experience of

  • being the first time visitor in a church and
  • experience the challenges of getting connected.

The church we have chosen has multiple services, so there are lots of people.  We expect to remain anonymous in this church.

Church Greeters will never know if we are new or repeat visitors, so their job is really to make sure we get to our seats and say hello.

Our positive overall experience.

During our initial visits, we were pretty much left to ourselves.

They have ushers and greeters and several good hospitality practices.

Sermons are relevant and connect Scripture to life.

They have a coffee hour after the service that allows us to visit and linger if we choose.

Guided to Children’s Church

I don’t expect too much personal attention in a church of this size, but on our second visit, one church member personally invited my young daughter to children’s church.

When she agreed to go (and be with a bunch of strangers), he personally led me and my daughter through the maze of their building to the children’s church class.

My daughter is social and outgoing, but I can imagine that she was somewhat intimidated at walking into

  • a new space,
  • with 25 new kids,
  • a new teacher,
  • no friends yet.

The teacher did a great job in helping my daughter start to join in with the activities of the class, and I was able to return to the service.

How do we get in?

This is a relatively large church.  This church has

  • 3 services on a Sunday,
  • lots of different options for Sunday school,
  • snacks at good coffee hour after the one service we attend
  • lots of programming announcements in the multi-page bulletin.

It’s a busy Sunday  morning when we navigate the building to find our kids, get some coffee, and so on.

There really isn’t much time to make friends in the small window between services and Sunday school starting.

So that leaves us with the question,

how do we develop friends in a new church?

Accidentally Left Out?

We filled out the connection card for two weeks, but it did not seem to trigger any kind of response that I expected:

  • a letter,
  • a phone call,
  • a visit,
  • bag of cookies
  • informational packet
  • something.

I had assumed of a church this size that we’d receive some informational pieces about the church that could tell us more about the places we could connect.

Advertised Programming not a match

As we looked over the bulletin each week, the programs that got more detailed descriptions didn’t appeal to us or our life situation: Grief care groups, divorce care groups, recovery groups.

Most of the other bulletin announcements seemed to be logistical details of schedule changes, room changes,volunteer signups, and other stuff that members needed to know.

There was a logo for a program called “Connections” but no description of what that was.

Might Sunday School be the way in?

We determined at least to let our kids go to Sunday school that happens after the service we attend.  For our kids – it was an easy option.  One Sunday school class for middle schoolers and one Sunday school class for the grade in elementary school.

But for us, we didn’t see a descriptive list of Sunday school classes, or know how to get one.  We only saw a class title and room number.  There were several classes for adults to choose from with nothing more than a title and room number.

The end result for us was

  • too many options
  • with too little information
  • and no clear simple next step.

So we made a default choice of simply hanging out at the coffee hour while our kids went to Sunday school.

So what happened?

An observant church member noted our lingering during the coffee time (after many people went to the next service or Sunday School).

They personally invited us to their choice of Sunday school class and took the time to tell us about the other classes that were happening, and we happily went along with them.

After a good Sunday school experience, our kids wanted to go to Wednesday night youth group.  When I showed up to deliver the kids to youth group,some friendly church members

  • personally led us the youth room,
  • made friendly small talk
  • invited me to visit with one of the many classes.
  • took me to each class to meet with the leader to briefly here a description.

I found a Wednesday night class that I could attend.

The Sunday school class and the Wednesday night class have become places where we are starting to make friends.

Case Study: A well done First Time Church Visit

2012 11 Jintogea Ignite 023Our family visited church for the first time, where we showed up unannounced and uninvited.

We found this church by driving past the sign on the street and choosing to visit.

A Cross Cultural Church Visitor Experience

This time, we chose to visit an immigrant Spanish language church.

We had no problem finding our way to the sanctuary, or even navigating the parking lot.  Signs were clear and the lighting was adequate as we attended this evening service.

The church had small attendance, so we were quickly recognized as first time church visitors.

I am not Latino, so I stood out as the only Caucasian in the whole place.

Several people promptly greeted us.  The took the initiative and offered a hand shake and engaged us in conversation.

Each conversation went beyond the formulaic exchange of a simple hello.  In fact, each person took a small interest in who we were, asking questions about us.

After several minutes, even the pastor came and introduced himself to us.  He sat down to talk with us for a few minutes before the service.

As the only church visitors that Sunday, the pastor publicly welcomed us in the service,  but he did not ask us to stand or share a story, or anything like that.

He shared with the church simple information like what country we were from and what our ministry was about.

After the service, more people came to us to shake our hands and let us know they would like to see us return if we were available.  We felt as if we were being welcomed into the family.

Lessons Learned:

  1. Take the initiative to greet.
  2. Don’t embarrass your church guest.
  3. Make small talk about your guest, not about your church programs.

Christmas Eve Failures Mean I Wouldn’t Return

closed doorChristmas Eve is a wonderful outreach opportunity!

Church Visitors come through your doors.

  • Some will come for the first time since last Christmas Eve.
  • Others still will be coming for the very first time with some spiritual thirst.
  • Some will be out of towners who are visiting with family.

I visited a church Christmas eve 2010.

My experience could make a great lesson in church hospitality for many churches.

Did I visit your church?

I visited a suburban church on a corner of an busy intersection.

The building was presentable.  In fact, it was clean and it’s interior was well lit.

The parking lot was clearly maintained and the grass/bushes lining the parking lot appeared well maintained.

Finding a parking spot and finding our way to the entrance of the church was no problem at 7.30 on a cold winter night.

It wasn’t easy to visit this church

However, to get this far, the church put up many obstacles.

For me to go back after this experience would be even another challenge.

Here are a few mistakes this church put up in the way.

Mistake Number 1.  No Special Service Times on the Church Website

Before visiting, my question was

“What time is the Christmas Eve Service?”

I checked their website, which was hard to find due to poor optimization for any of the search terms I used.

Once I found their website, I looked at the home page for the special service times.

I found no information about Christmas Eve services.

I called the phone number and got a voice mail that didn’t indicate a Christmas eve service.

I kept searching around their website, only because I had heard from my friend that this church was having a Christmas Eve service.

In my search, I found the pastor’s email on the contact page and sent him an email asking if there was a service. The email address was pastor@[name of church].org, but I didn’t get an answer until 3 days after the Christmas eve service from the church secretary.  The email didn’t even go to the pastor that day.

Eventually, I found the church calender for December in a PDF. It had a little note on the square for 24 December that Christmas Eve service would be 7.30pm.

I FOUND IT!

Solution #1: Use the home page of your website to feature times of special services.  Make it easy for church visitors to get answers on line.

Solution#2: If you have the pastor’s email on there, I suggest it goes to a person who can answer it quickly.  Four days later is not acceptable.

Mistake Number 2.  No one said hello.

I’ve been to large churches where anonymity is important.

This church appeared to fit 100-150 people in the sanctuary, so it has a small church feel.  I’ve pastored churches this size and know who is a visitor or not.

We had arrived about 10 minutes before service, but there were only 40-50 people there.

Even though we were early, no one took the initiative to say hello.

For a congregation this size, this creates awkward uncomfortableness for the visitors.

The pastor wandered about welcoming people he knew, but never bothered to approach us.

I noticed we were not the only 1st time church visitors – there was another clueless family in front of us.

Solution: You are likely to receive church visitors on Christmas Eve, some of whom might be seeking the Lord for the first time.  Don’t neglect them or ignore their presence.

Make all efforts to welcome both members and guests.

Mistake Number 3: Impossible Hymns.

This church promoted a Christmas Eve service with traditional Christmas carols and communion service.

Together with a choir and the organ, we sang traditional hymns for this time of year.

The church did provide printed lyrics in their church bulletin and projected hymn lyrics on the wall to assist those who needed to follow lyrics.

However, two or three of the selected hymns were

  • obscure in their lyrics and
  • cumbersome in melody.

Since lyrics to those Christmas hymns were so unfamiliar even to choir, the singing of those hymns was a musical disaster.

  • People in the church, including vistors, started and finished in different places.
  • Some word syllables were held for 3 beats instead of 4.
  • Some of those beats were in really weird places.
  • One song was missing projected lyrics so only the pastor was singing.
  • At one point, we had to stop and go look for hymnbooks,  but by the time we found it, the lyrics were found and projected.

In that hymn in particular, we and most of the congregation gave up after the first verse.

Solution:  Your Christmas Eve Services isn’t the place to introduce new hymns.  If your eight person choir doesn’t know it to carry the lead, then please don’t do it.

Choose musically simple songs that are easy to sing and have worked their way into the culture.

Mistake Number 4.  No one said hello as we left.

When the Christmas Eve service ended, we filed out of the sanctuary.

No one looked at us, nor engaged us in conversation.  By this point, we really didn’t have an interest to start a conversation.

I expected the pastor to be standing by the back door greeting folks leaving the sanctuary, but he had gone somewhere else and I never had a chance to meet him.

Solution: These precious moments after your Christmas Eve service is over is  THE BEST TIME to demonstrate the friendliness of your congregation.

How?  Take the initiative and greet the first time visitors.  In a church this size, saying hello is a great ice breaker and could possibly overcome those other mistakes above.

Your Christmas Eve Service is a great time to Welcome Visitors

The church did have some things going for it.

A nice building, a great location, and clean bathrooms.

However, the personal friendliness of the congregation fell way short.  Our presence was obvious as first time church visitors.  In a congregation of this size, the lack of greeting made for awkward feelings.

It makes it very hard for me to make a recommendation of this church to anyone else.

 

My name is Chris Walker and I've conducted training on evangelism and church growth internationally … Read More

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