Welcome Church Visitors

How Good Hospitality Grows Your Church

What is Hospitality in the Church?

A recent question brought by a reader is

What is hospitality in the church?

Answering this question can take the discussion in 100 different directions.

I want to share with you how I teach on hospitality at church.

Specifically, I focus on hospitality centered around the worship service experience.

What is church hospitality?

I teach that church hospitality has a two fold meaning

  • Taking the initiative to welcome the visitor
  • Inviting the visitor to participate in the mission of the church

Taking the initiative

On the one hand, church hospitality is organized friendliness on a Sunday morning.

On the other hand, hospitality ministry should be part of the DNA of your congregation, not just the volunteers who participate in welcoming church visitors.

Being intentional in creating a good welcome is part of the organized friendliness

  • Remove the barriers that cause unnecessary awkwardness
  • Create lasting impressions that helps church visitors decide to come back
  • Make clear pathways for repeat visitors to start building new relationships and friendships.

All of this involves your greeters, welcome center volunteers, and other hospitality ministry servants.

Taking the initiative involves vision casting for hospitality ministries throughout the congregation – so that all members value and show honor to invited guests at the church.

Inviting the Church Visitor

The second part of my working definition of church hospitality involves the intentional inviting of that guest to return and participate in the mission of the church.

That’s not to say “recruit them for empty volunteer positions in the nursery” after the first Sunday.

Rather, I speak of an intentional thinking about helping your church visitor who comes back repeatedly to start making new friends in the congregation.

This is all the role of visitor assimilation or visitor follow-up.

  • What is the low commitment next step that your repeat church visitor can take to start building those relationships
  • How do your visitors learn about the opportunity?

Coaching Corner

If you are

  • relaunching your hospitality committee,
  • restarting your church welcome ministries
  • trying to figure out where to start with church hospitality

you should consider the ebook, How To Welcome Church Visitors.  Read about the book here.

I do offer various telephone coaching services for your church hospitality team.   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 church hospitality coaching here.

What do Church Hospitality Committees do?

start-buttonIn 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?

Recent Posts

  • How to A Lose First Time Guest to your Church
  • Follow-up Calls with Church Guests: What to Do and What Not to Do
  • The shortcut to a great welcome
  • Where do you start?
  • Can’t Get Enough Volunteers for Your Hospitality Ministry?

RSS Church Hospitality

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  • Your church visitor has a list
  • Church Hospitality Survey Assessment or Audit

RSS Church Greeters

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  • Top 21 Posts on Church Greeter Ministry

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

Recent Posts

  • How to A Lose First Time Guest to your Church
  • Follow-up Calls with Church Guests: What to Do and What Not to Do
  • The shortcut to a great welcome
  • Where do you start?
  • Can’t Get Enough Volunteers for Your Hospitality Ministry?

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  • The Ebook
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Related Products

  • How to Welcome Visitors Ebook
  • Hospitality Coaching Call
  • MP3: Create A Vision for Church Hospitality
  • Break the Barriers DVD Set