In recent years, I’ve spoken to more churches that want to ramp up their church hospitality for visitors and that usually entails forming some kind of church hospitality committee.

But what does the church hospitality committee do?

Define the goal

In my reasoning, the purpose of the hospitality committee in church is to take responsibility for welcome and receiving of your church visitors coming for the first time, or perhaps the first time in a long time.

Other churches may include marketing and outreach under their committee, as well as assimilation processes, but that may make the committees work to0 big.  Other churches have such a committee looking at all aspects of church hospitality at events at the church such as weddings, funerals, receptions, etc.

You’ll need to decide the scope of the committee, but these are general areas.

For my purposes, I usually recommend the following area of committee responsibilities:

• Marketing Team: focuses on webpage, print materials for programming, and social networking areas.  Their goal is to help drive visitor attendance to the church.
• Hospitality Team: focused on the welcome and hospitality experience.  The goal is to create a great impression and remove unnecessary barriers to a repeat visit.
• Follow up Team: helping regularly returning church visitors step into your membership or connection processes.  The goal is to help a newcomer become a regular participant in congregational life.

Areas of work for the church hospitality committee:

On the assumption that the church hospitality committee focuses on the welcome and hospitality experience, the team should be involved in developing the working parts of the hospitality ministry.

• Church Greeters
• Church Ushers
• Church Welcome Center
• Visual presentation of the campus facilities
• Communication pieces for church visitors
• Welcome Packets for your church visitors
• Post service receptions
• Small thank you gifts for your first time visitors
• Advocating for great welcomes throughout the life of the church.

Where does the new church hospitality committee start?

If you are starting a new church hospitality committee, or restarting one that has been neglected, the most common question is

Where do we start?

I have coached several church hospitality teams that are in this same arena.

You can start in any of the above areas or pick one of these areas:

• Develop your greeters
• Determine your connection process
• Do an audit of your facilities for adequate signage and lighting
• Start an after service reception
• Develop a welcome packet for church visitors
• Determine how you get church visitor contact information.
• Read books such as the one on this site: How to Welcome Church Visitors

Next steps I can help with

I offer several items to help you with developing your church hospitality committee.

Over at the EvangelismCoach.org store, I have several products for immediate download or on DVD that you might find helpful:

• How to Welcome Church Visitors (ebook)
• Church Greeters 101 (ebook)
• Cast the Vision for Hospitality (Download MP3)
• Church Hospitality Review (Download MP3)
• Break the Barriers DVD set (4 DVD set aimed at helping you identify and remove barriers).

Another service that I offer church hospitality is some personalized coaching.

Usually, I spend time on the phone with your committee, up to 90 minutes, where I help you trouble shoot and develop some action plans.  Read more about that here.

Other hospitality committees will read much of the Church Hospitality Category over at EvangelismCoach.org and develop their own training session.

Let me ask you this?

What are the primary areas of focus for your church hospitality committee?