Church guests

I was recently asked by the pastor of a church I had visited to give him an assessment of the church. He was especially interested in the friendliness of the congregation towards people who did not normally attend the church. It was a great question that demonstrated he understood the importance of hospitality. From my experience of visiting well over a hundred churches in the past nine years I believe that hospitality is one of the areas in which many smaller churches need to improve. Many people visiting a church for the first time will decide within the first seven minutes whether or not they will return. This decision is often made well before the service even begins. What are some of the ways your church can make a positive first impression on your guests? I recently heard Nelson Searcy speak on this issue at a workshop, and I'll share with you from the notes I took.

Hospitality begins by your congregation seeing every guest in your church as a gift from God. They did not have to attend church that morning, and they certainly did not have to attend your church. It is likely they passed other churches closer to their home to attend yours, so it's important to believe their presence in your service is a gift from God to your church. The question then is, how will your church treat that gift?

There are four things that will make a positive first impression on these guests. The first is how they are greeted. The first thing that greets your guests is your property. Drive around your church property and look at it from the perspective of someone who has never been there before. Is the grass neatly cut? Is the door clean and painted? Is the parking lot clean of debris? It is no accident that McDonald's has someone pick up the trash from their parking lot every morning. What about the persons assigned to greet people as they enter the building? Are they friendly? Have they been trained in how to greet people? Do you have your most personable members serving as greeters?

The second thing Searcy mentioned was how guests are directed. Do signs clearly point the way to the nursery, to the bathroom, and to the sanctuary? If someone asks for direction to some location in the building are they pointed in the way they need to go or does someone take them? The correct answer is they should be escorted to their destination.

The third quality is how they are treated. Have you ever gone into a restaurant bathroom and found really nice paper towels neatly folded on a clean countertop, mouthwash or mints, and nice soap containers filled with soft disinfecting soap? Have you gone into a bathroom and found water and towels all over the floor and countertop, soap dispensers half-hanging on the wall and often nearly empty, and those stupid air machines that couldn't dry your hands if you stayed in there for a half-hour? Which bathroom made you feel better about the place where you were eating, and which one would cause you to want to return to this restaurant? Now, what should your bathrooms look like? How are your guests treated?

The fourth and final one for this posting is how they are seated. After a room becomes 60% filled it becomes harder to find a seat. Most guests won't be comfortable sitting on the front pew or row of seats. Our members are not comfortable sitting there so why should we think guests would want to sit there. The seats next to the aisle are usually filled which forces late arrivers, including guests, to have to interrupt people to get to an inside seat. This often causes guests to feel very uncomfortable. Once the sanctuary begins to fill up it becomes important for the ushers to seat their guests. The usher can ask people sitting on the aisle seats to allow these individuals to get to their seats taking the embarrassment from the guests.

One final thought Searcy shared with us...women will often decide whether or not to return to your church based primarily on two things: the cleanliness of the facility and the security of the childcare. Again, take a walk through your church and look at it through the eyes of a first-time guest. What are they seeing when they see it for the first time? Is it clean? What are the security features of your childcare? The answers to these two questions may determine how many of your first-time guests return.