Creating a guest-friendly church

I heard Nelson Searcy ask one time, "Why should God send guests to your church if you are not ready to receive them?"  I thought it was one of the best questions a church could be asked.  Virtually every church, many of them smaller churches, complain about the lack of new people who visit their church, but the reality is they would not be ready to receive them if they did come.  Their lack of preparation would likely mean that the guests they will not return.

Unfortunately, many of these churches would be surprised if someone told them they were not ready to receive guests.  After all, they are the friendliest church in town!  However, I can speak from experience, having visited in many churches over the past 12 years, that these churches are not ready for new people to visit their churches.  They may be friendly to the ones they know, but they are not ready to welcome first-time guests.  What do these churches need to do to become ready?  Here are some suggestions:

• Have your doors open.  One of my pet peeves is to visit a church for the first time, find four front doors and then have to guess which one is unlocked.  Either have all of them unlocked or have the door that is open clearly marked so people don't have to try all the door handles before finding the one that opens.
• Have TRAINED greeters at the door ready to greet the people when they enter.  It's even better to have one or two outside.  These should be people with gifts of hospitality who are truly excited to see people come to church.  Besides your grounds and outside facilities, these are the persons who will often create the first impression of your church for first-time guests.  You want that impression to be good.  At the same time, don't have a gauntlet of people greeting folks.  When I have to pass by five or six greeters just to get inside the building it seems a little much.
• Post signs everywhere.  My wife wonders how I can visit a restaurant for the first time and immediately know where the bathroom is.  Easy...I look for the signs.  How will people know where your sanctuary is, where the education rooms are located, or where to find the bathrooms if you don't have signs.
• DO NOT ASK YOUR GUESTS TO IDENTIFY THEMSELVES!  I cringe every time I visit a church and hear someone ask the visitors to stand and tell everyone who they are.  That may have been OK in the 1950s, but people today prefer to remain anonymous when they visit a church for the first time.  I visited a church once and was asked to wear a name badge to let people know I was a visitor.  I refused which did not make the "greeter" very happy with me.
• If you provide pew Bibles list the page numbers of any Scripture texts you will be using in the service.  This can be a big help to your guests who may not be familiar with the Bible.  (It could be a big help for some of your members, too!)
• One of the things I did as a pastor was that I recognized the presence of guests in our service as we prepared for the offering.  After thanking them for coming, I mentioned that their presence today was their gift to us and they should not feel that they needed to give anything to the offering.  I explained that our ministry was funded by our members and regular attenders and again emphasized that they had already contributed to our church through their presence.
• If you want your guests to return, be prepared to do follow-up within a day or two.  If your church has few guests, now is the time to prepare for that follow-up.  Again, maybe the absence of guests is a sign that God doesn't think your church is ready to receive them.  Be very intentional about your follow-up.

Earlier, I mentioned Nelson Searcy.  He has written a book that I believe is the absolute best on this subject titled Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church.  If you are interested in how to be better prepared to receive guests I highly recommend this book to you.