Guests in the church

Is your church ready to receive guests? As someone who spent 14 years in denominational ministry and visited many churches during that time I can assure you that many churches are not. Although they may say they want new people to attend their church, they are not prepared to welcome guests to their service.

For starters, let's understand the difference between a visitor and a guest. A visitor is someone who shows up uninvited. A visitor at your home might be someone canvassing the community for a political party or a vacuum salesman. A few years ago I actually had the same vacuum salesman come to my house three times one summer. He finally got the hint I wasn't interested in him or his vacuum! We are not prepared for a visitor, we didn't expect the person to show up at our door and most likely we didn't invite him or her inside the house.

On the other hand, a guest is someone we were expecting. We may have invited them to come to our home at a specific time. We have made plans to welcome them, perhaps to offer them a meal or at least some refreshment. Chances are we may have cleaned the house up a little. There is probably a reason they are at our home. We will do everything we can to make their time with us pleasant and comfortable.

Now, does your church have visitors or guests? We make a mistake when we view our first-time guests as visitors. Doing so admits that we are not ready to meet them, we've made no effort to make their time with us comfortable or enjoyable, and, in fact, we may inadvertently give them the message we don't want them back.

Here's another question: Why would God send a church guests if the church is not prepared to receive them? There are many churches in your community your guests could have chosen to attend. If we want to see more attend our services we need to be prepared to welcome them. How can we do that?

Signs are important to let guests know where to go in many churches. Signs that point to the bathrooms help guests know where the facilities are without asking. Signs that indicate the main entrance or which doors are open. I've been to churches and tried to open 3-4 doors before finally finding the secret door that allowed entrance into the building. Very frustrating. I then wondered if I would be able to guess the secret handshake that would gain me admission into the sacred chamber. Is there reserved parking for first-time guests, and is it clearly marked, or do the church members gobble up the closest parking spots? Even worse, are those spots reserved for church staff? Are there trained greeters at each entrance prepared to greet the people as they enter? Here's another suggestion: one or two at each entrance is enough. I hate walking through a corridor of greeters as I enter a church.

Does your church provide anonymity for its guests? Please tell me you don't still ask your visitors to stand and introduce themselves so the usher can bring them a cup and a pen. Hopefully, you don't have a "greet your neighbor" time. The only persons who dislike that more than your guests are your members. It adds nothing to the worship service and feels like an intrusion to the guests.

If your church uses bulletins or programs, make sure they don't have to be translated for your guests. "The women's group will meet at Mary's house at the usual time this week" tells your guests there is a lot of family-speak in this church, and they are not invited to Mary's (whoever she is) house (where ever it is) at the usual time (whatever that is). Make everything in your service user-friendly.

It is permissible to provide Connection Cards that will allow your guests to provide their name and contact information if they choose to do so. Gathering this information will enable the church to thank them for coming to the service. Such a thank you can be sent via email if they provide that information or by a thank-you card. The thank you must be sent that week to be effective. A follow-up phone call can also be made to ask if they have any questions about the church and to invite them to return.

Many churches do not realize the amount of work and expense to requires to make their guests feel welcomed and encouraged to return. That's why they don't make much effort to make their churches attractive to guests.