Evangelism Coach

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On a human level, visitors will come to your church because they have

• Been invited by a friend.
• Been referred by a friend in their grapevine.
• Seen your building in their commuting patterns
• Heard about your church through your marketing (direct mail, website, door hangers, business cards, radio, TV, phone book)
• Experienced your community outreach (e.g. food pantry, medical outreach, Dog Park, Hot Dog’s for Jesus, Free coffee on Mondays, Christmas Store)

These focus on the how that visitor found their way to your church.  These don’t suggest  “Why did that visitor come?”  That gets into motives, spiritual needs, situation and life.  There are many different reasons why a person would choose to come to your church for the first time, and in this series on Christian hospitality, we won’t explore that here.

Getting Visitors to Come

Getting visitors to your church is a different question.

That too, we can explore outside of this series on Christian hospitality.  That gets into the missional/attractional debates, marketing, outreach and lots of other trails for another day. 

It also touches on the connection between marketing and evangelism, and other blogs I read (www.MinistryMarketingCoach.com and www.ChurchMarketingSucks.com) deal with such issues.

Welcome Visitors to Church

Searcy writes in the introduction to his book Fusion (see my review of Fusion Visitor Assimilation), that

“Next Sunday the Spirit of God will prompt hundreds of thousands of people in the United States, and millions around the world to visit a church for the first time.” 

In fact, he suggests that each visitor are “God’s gift to you. . . . ”

While the book covers his entire system of Visitor Assimilation, chapter 3 gives a good writeup on Four Factors that he considers important

1. Greeted: Welcome with a smile
2. Directed: simply and politely shown where they need to go.
3. Treated: Shown respect and perhaps surprised with food/drink.
4. Seated: Led to comfortable, appropriate seats.

Greeting Visitors

I can’t begin to tell you how important a greeting can be. 

You can read the difference between two experiences of two different congregations that shared the same building:

• First Time Church Visitor Experience (No Greeting)
• 1st Time Church Visitor Story (Greeted)
• No One Said Hello

I’ve complied a set of links on Evangelismcoach.org that point to Greeting visitors.

• Welcoming Visitors to Your Church - Miracles disguised as needs.
• 6 hints for welcoming visitors to your church.
• 10 Tips for Greeters (One of the Most Popular Articles Here)
• How Not to Welcome A Visitor (Secret Dress Code)
• Welcome a Spanish speaking Visitor

Different ways to greet visitors:

www.ChurchMarketingSucks.com conducted a poll among its readers.  See the Special Guests Poll Results (on Welcoming Visitors) and various ways their readers greet visitors during the service.

First Presbyterian in Branson MO greets visitors publicly during the service.  Read More tips for welcoming a visitor which is their story.  It works for them because of the pastor’s skill in greeting people before the service and he makes the greeting time fun. 

One reader submitted a question via Ask EvangelismCoach about greeting visitors in the public service with flowers.  (Read Should we single out First Time Visitors?).  The discussion in the comments grows, and I’ve not yet answered the question myself.  That’ll come in a future post.

Here is a simple but not exhaustive list of ideas:

• A simple handshake and a small greeting.
• Friendly ushers trained to notice and talk with visitors.
• Everyone stand and greet/meet while upbeat music is playing.
• “Secret” Greeters who are trained to notice and talk with visitors

Let me ask you this?

What is the way your church greets and give welcome to church visitors?

(Get our Newsletter and a link to download for free:Avoiding First Time Visitor Nightmares)

You were a first time church visitor. 

I can say that because most of my regular readers (through my RSS feed) and Newsletter subscribers are actively involved in their local church.

At some point in time, you visited for the first time.

Do you remember your experience? 

Do you remember the emotions you felt being in a new space for the first time surrounded by dozens, if not hundreds, of people you didn’t know?

Before getting into the practical steps on giving welcome to Church visitors I want to share a few more devotional thoughts about church visitors and Christian Hospitality.

You were the church visitor

Leviticus 19:33-34 commands Israel to welcome strangers because of their experience in Egypt.

‘When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’

They were not to oppress the alien because they knew how it felt when they were in Egypt (Exodus 23:9)

While this verse can say much towards the current national debate on immigration in the US and perhaps the immigration debates in other countries, we can stretch it to speak about visitors who come to your church. 

(It’s not proper exegesis, but a great point can still be made).

You might be a long term member of your church. 

At one point you were not. 

You were a visitor for the first time.  You had a need and somehow, you found your way to that church. 

You were the “alien.”

Now the coin has been turned. 

You have integrated yourself into the community of faith, and other people are coming to your church for the first time.  Now those visitors are the “alien.” 

• How can you  treat visitors as one of your own?
• How can you “Love them as yourself, for you were aliens . . . ?”

Jesus welcomed people

Notice what Jesus did with visitors in Luke 9:11 (Feeding the Five Thousand)

The crowds . . . . followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.

In fact Jesus welcomed so many people into his presence, that he was accused of welcoming sinners (Luke 15:1-2)

Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Acts 28:30 points to Paul’s practice of welcoming people

For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him.

McIntosh makes the point that several different Greek words used for “welcome.”

together, they suggest the meaning of gladly welcoming someone to one’s home as a guest . . . [Welcoming newcomers] is a theological demonstration of God’s grace. . . .when we welcome newcomers to church, we are demonstrating the gracious love and care of God (p. 12) 

Source: (Assimilating Church Visitors: Beyond the First Visit)

Let me ask you this?

• How does your church welcome visitors?
• How do you personally welcome visitors?
• Do you see your welcome as reflecting God’s grace?

This weekend, our family attended a church down the street.  I share the story of our visit as a first time visitor. 

Our family was not part of this denomination, and not a part of this local community.  This was our first time ever in this building, and first time ever in that particular denomination.

We went uninvited, with no pre-exisiting social connections.  We were out of towners, looking for a church to join in Sunday celebrations.

How did we find the church?

My parents live about 5 miles off the main highway.  There is only one road that goes to their house.  This church is located on that main road.  We have driven by the church over many a family visit.  Every time we go to the house, and every time we leave the house, we see that it’s there.

This weekend was our first chance to go.

Church website

We looked up the church’s website in Google.  For the church name, came up first.  Clicking around the pages, we saw only 1 picture of the congregation.  The rest was text.  Sometimes the text was way over the top and flowery, full of Christian lingo about contemporary hymns and responding in worship.

Some of the links were broken, but at least the service time and directions were on the home page.   

Under the ministries tab, they had a link for evangelism, but it was broken.

Parking Lot

Approaching the building, we entered the parking lot. 

We didn’t know where the front door was (it wasn’t facing the one and only parking lot entrance). 

We did find that they had spaces marked for visitors — they were all empty.  We chose to park with the normal people, even though we were visitors.  Most of the cars were parked towards the rear of the building. 

The campus was clean and landscaped well.  There didn’t appear to be any signage indicating where the front door was.  We arrived at the same time other people did, so we watched where people went to enter the building.

Entering the church

An usher held the door open for us, and politely shook our hand.  He even volunteered his name, which prompted both of us to offer ours. 

We entered the main lobby (some people still call it a narthex), on our own. 

Here I noticed my emotions were stirring– we were in a crowded room, not knowing where to go, not knowing a soul.  People were around us talking, smiling, and greeting each other, but we were feeling a little insecure in a strange crowded space. 

We had no bearing on the physical space, no map in our head of where everything was.  Anxiety? 

I glanced around and noticed a table.  The sign said visitor table, but no person standing around it.  What were we supposed to do?  We ignored it.

We found our way to the sanctuary.  An usher gave us a program, but we had to interrupt her conversation with other people in order to get one. 

Once we entered the sanctuary, we eventually found our own seats, wondering if we were sitting in someone else’s seat.  People filed in and out, greeting each other with smiles and conversation, along with the "How’s your wife, how’s aunt Suzy doing?" type small talk. 

People sat in front of us, and actually talked to the people behind us,

The service

Even though I’ve been a visitor in many services, I found that I was disconnected from this one. 

The songs and tunes were unfamiliar.  Rich in their theology, and probably very accurate in this theological tradition, we didn’t connect.

The leader of the service said something to the effect of "Visitors, we welcome you and invite you to stop by the visitor table on the way out for a free gift." 

I knew where the visitor table was, because I had seen it, but no one was there.  Did other visitors know where the table was?

The worship bulletin said "Attention visitors, glad you are here."

The preaching was fine.  The music was good. 

The benediction was given, and church dismissed.

We exited the sanctuary, in an orderly process with the crowd, and went to the lobby where some coffee was served. 

We stood around a few minutes, observing people talking and laughing and carrying on.  My wife browsed the ministry board that had the flyers on all the ministries of the church.

We eventually left, since no one was talking to us, or perhaps even noticing that we exist.   They were all engaged in their own friendly conversations.

I don’t even recall eye contact with people.

Reflections on a fist time visit

The social circles in this church seem really strong.  In fact, it seems like it would take an extrovert to put himself or herself out there to break into those social circles and feel a sense of home. 

We left feeling like we’d never fit into that church. 

They said 2x that they were glad we visitors were here, but made no effort to notice us.  The people around us truly talked around us.

My wife said, "I find it nice when the pastor or leader says, Take a moment and say hello to someone you haven’t met yet."  That can at least allow us to briefly feel welcome, even if its a cursory greeting.

Perhaps this chuch’s philosopy is to ignore the visitor or let the visitor remain totally anonymous until the visitor makes themselves known in some way, like parking in the visitor spot, or visiting the visitor table.  

There is no one in that church that noticed we were first time visitors.  The church administration or ministry team have no idea that we were even there.  We left as anonymous as we arrived.

 Let me ask you this?

When was the last time you were a 1st time visitor in a church where you

• showed up uninvited
• knew absolutely no one,
• had never been in the building before?

Did you notice the 1st time visitor in your church last weekend?

One of the features here is “Ask EvangelismCoach.org“, a place where you can submit a question that’s on your mind about evangelism.   I collect them for ideas for future articles, and is a great conversation starter.

A recent one that came in was:

I’m so excited to have found your website - you were recommended by the Evangelism person on staff at PCUSA in Louisville, KY. 

There’s a specific question on my mind, one that is causing quite a fuss at the church I’m serving as an interim pastor.  Here’s the question:  should first time visitors be asked to stand up during the worship service, identify themselves, and receive a flower that then identifies them as visitors to the more tenured members of the congregation?

Before I share my answer, I’d like to hear from some of the regular readers who get this via RSS feed, or some of the recent visitors who are here for the first time. 

• What does your church do to recognize first time visitors?
• Do you recognize first time visitors?

Describe your church’s practice in the comments below, or use the email form on the contact us page if you don’t want to leave it publicly.

I finished reading

Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church.

This book is sure to be on the top of the list for Visitor Assimilation texts. 

Note: I read Beyond the First Visit: The Complete Guide to Connecting Guests to Your Church, Gary McIntosh (see my review at Assimilating Church Visitors- Beyond the First Visit). 

To make a comparison between the two books is like comparing a Ferrari to a Escort. 

There are several key elements to Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church that have made their visitor retention rate so astronomical. 

I write about one idea for Survey First Time Visitors.

The entire process is laid out simply in their book (along with lots of shameless plugs for Searcy’s other materials).  

Visitors are gifts from God

His beginning point is to recognize that in God’s sovereignty, every visitor is a Gift to your church.  They didn’t show up by chance.  But rather, as a gift, and “first time gifts full of unparalleled potential.” 

How can we turn them into developing members? 

“By sending that guest to you, God is giving you the privilege of cooperating with Him to move someone forward in their journey toward Jesus.”

What visitor retention rate do I need to reach?

Searcy leads us on a practical exercise.  If you are reading this, think about your church.  To help you bench mark, statistics suggest that each year a church needs to keep

• 3 guests /100 attenders to maintain itself
• 5 guests / 100 attenders to steadily grow
• 7 guests or more / 100 attenders to rapidly grow

Considering your church, how many guests do you need to keep each year?

How well do you retain church visitors now?

What is your retention ratio?  More specifically, here are 6 facts to dig up for your church

• Average attendance per month 2 years ago.
• Average attendance same month 1 year ago.
• What is your annual growth?  Hopefully, the second number is higher than the 1st.
• How many first time guests did you have during the past year?
• Divide your growth / the total number of first timers.

How many visitor you keep?

Assimilation Process

The basic assimilation system that is presented in Fusion is a simple (in overview anyway). 

1. Turn a first time guest into a second time guest.
2. Turn a second time guest into a regular attender.
3. Turn a regular attender into a fully developing member.

The entire rest of the book explores this process and system as it has developed at The Journey church.

The temptation will be to simply buy the book and implement the process as if the process is the key that will solve all your visitor retention problems.  That is systems thinking and treating this system as the next big thing.   Searcy concedes “the church is not a business,” yet in the same sentence adds “[but] we would be smart to take some cues from the consumer-conscious service world.”   This is a solid “nuts and bolts” resource for congregations and ministries alike.

You will need to tweak it for your local context.  For example, their process is very dependent upon email and it is of utmost priority to capture email addresses from their visitors.  Their system depends on it.  Yet some of you may have churches in areas and with people who still don’t use email.  How will you adjust the system to your context?

There are so many variables in visitor retention, including the system.  Others include the friendliness of the congregation, presentation of the facilities, and more.  This book is not the magic happy pill to solve your visitor retention problems, but rather provides a step by step system to at least help with the data gathering and processing to help you “process” visitors.  Of the books I have read on visitor retention, this one presents the best system I have seen.

Order your copy of Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church direct from Amazon.

If you would like live training or consulting about evaluating your hospitality, check out our articles on hospitality and feel free to give us a call at 804-335-1445.  Send an email to and I will send you a hospitality audit form.

Printed Announcements

Many churches still use a bulletin or program to share the news of community life.

• Do you proofread your announcements?
• Is the font easy to read?
• Does the bulletin appear professional (not a 7th generation photocopy)
• Are contact names and phone numbers included?  If not, what central point can a person go to to get information.
• Do you have group names that don’t indicate who that group is (see below about The eagles).

Our church doesn’t use print announcements with the exception of a monthly newsletter that is distributed 1st Sunday every month.   More immediate announcements are given via video.

Video Announcements

Many churches make announcements via video screen these days, or in color bulletins, or so forth.

At the church we currently attend, these are shown at the end.  They keep attention, are short, and prevent a person from extending their announcement too long.

Contact Persons

Many video announcements conclude with “For more information, see Jack Smith” or other contact person.

As long time visitors, we realized

• that we don’t know Jack Smith. 
• we still don’t know who to ask to find Jack Smith.

We’d like to participate in Jack Smith’s event, but it’s hard to find information.

A better idea for video is to show a photo of Jack Smith.  For more information see Jack Smith, and include his picture so that people know what he looks like.

Simply including a picture would help get around the “everyone knows who Jack Smith is” mentality.  Visitors don’t know everyone.

Groups

Another video announcement really caught my eye.  It was for a group in the church going to hike in a park.  I thought it was a great idea to help our family connect.

It also was for a group in the church called “The Eagles.”  The narration didn’t describe who the eagles are. 

• Are they a football team? 
• Are they the pre-k kids? 
• Are they the old wise men? 

The video featured all sorts of imagery, but no faces of contact people in the church.   Looked like fun.

Who do I talk with?  I want to go to the park.

For more information

The narration also didn’t include where to get more information. 

When I asked someone about where to find more, their answer to me was “Everyone knows to go to the table at the back.” 

Well, not everyone.

Not visitor friendly.

Church insiders know

• who the group leaders are. 
• where group leaders can be found
• where information is distributed.

Visitors do not  know

• who Jack Smith is
• your sub group names
• if they are welcome to come. 
• information is available at the back table.

With those barriers to hospitality, visitors may not connect at the events in the life of the church you expect them to come to. 

Let me suggest this:

Take a look at your announcements over the past few weeks and see what kinds of barriers you have placed in front of visitors.

If you would like more information about evaluating your hospitality, check out our articles on hospitality and feel free to give us a call at 804-335-1445.  Send an email to pastor_chris@evangelismcoach.org and I will send you a hospitality audit form.

I found this interesting press release the other day.  (Source: Presbyterians focus on ascension and evangelism).  In case it’s taken down, here is most of the text.  See my comments below the article.

At 10:30 a.m. worship on Sunday, May 4, in both sermon and song, Tyrone Presbyterians will focus on the Ascension of the Lord, 40 days after Easter, and on the evangelism, which Christ called His followers to exercise every day after His exit from Earth.
      Many Christians around the world celebrate the Ascension of the Lord on Ascension Thursday, May 1, 2008. In the Christian year, Ascension Thursday occurs 40 days after Easter, and 10 days before Pentecost. Before his message, Epworth Chaplain and Presbyterian Preaching Pastor Mark Liller will read the story of Ascension Day found in Acts 1:6 through 14. In that Bible reading, Christ’s followers gather at Mount Olivet, just outside Jerusalem, and the narrator writes, “After Jesus had said this, as they watched, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight.”
      Following Reverend Liller’s Ascension Day scripture reading, the Westminster Choir will sing an anthem entitled “A Hymn Of Glory Let Us Sing.” Composed in about 700 A.D. by the British church historian Venerable Bede, this choir anthem has been considered the first hymn about Ascension Day written as Christians celebrate Christ’s exit from Earth.
      With the Ascension Day scripture as his foundation, Pastor Liller will deliver a message with the terse title – “Evangelism.” In his homily, Liller will challenge Tyrone Presbyterians with Christ’s Ascension Day commandment to His followers – “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
      Hearing Reverend Liller’s message about evangelism, Tyrone Presbyterians will respond by singing two beloved Sunday school hymns – “We’ve A Story To Tell To The Nations” (1896) and “I Love To Tell The Story” (1866).
      As the days of Easter hasten toward Pentecost, and churches all across Tyrone energize to increase their membership, why not join Tyrone Presbyterians for 10:30 worship this Sunday, May 4 while they look toward a hopeful future, as expressed in this Sunday school hymn – “For the darkness shall turn to dawning, and the dawning to noonday bright/And Christ’s Great Kingdom shall come on Earth, The Kingdom of Love and Light.!”

As I read this press release, I find it very confusing.  I’ve read it multiple times and finally seem to have gotten the general gist.  Yet it is so full of flowery language that those steeped in the Christian tradition would recognize, but those who have not been at church would find confusing:

• Homily
• Ascension Thursday
• Respond by singing
• Energize to Increase Membership.
• Days of Easter hasten towards Pentecost
• If the title is terse, will the sermon be terse?
• Westminster Choir?  Is that a different church or the name of your choir?
• Beloved Sunday School hymn: I didn’t go to Sunday school in 1896 or 1866.
• Any visitors are not invited to sing?  (The Tyrone Presbyterians will respond . . . .)
• What is the pastor’s title?  How do I address him?  He’s called by 4 different labels in the press release (Chaplin, Presbyterian Preaching Pastor, Reverend, Pastor).

Is the goal of this press release to to get members?  Is the goal of the service to get members?  Are we to exercise every day per paragraph 1?

If your church is issuing press releases, think how this press release could be simplified and geared towards non-churched visitors. 

• Simplify language structure.  
• Are hymn histories necessary?
• Answer the question: Why should I come?
• Fix grammatical and punctuation errors.