Help Church Visitors Make Connections
God sovereignly brings visitors to your church. But once people are first welcomed into your church during their first visit, what happens when the service is over? How do you help your church visitor connect?
Church Dropouts — why people find it easy to leave
If it was easy for me to drop out the back door of the local church, what can you do to help close that door? Here are 4 simple strategy steps
The Best Church Visitor Assimilation Tool
The best church visitor assimilation tool is not a visitor contact card. Nor is it a complicated data system, direct mail, automated emails, or even a free gift for your church visitors from the beautiful welcome center. Those things help, but they are not the most powerful assimilation tools. The best tool is ....
What Spurgeon Thought Was Sufficient to Grow Your Church
Many churches have bought into church growth technique as if hospitality technique will reinvigorate a church in transition. They search for techniques: Visitor retention rates, the "right thing to say" to church visitors: or the best church visitor assimilation process. But the right technique doesn't grow your church. Charles Spurgeon shared some thoughts on this:
Six hints for welcoming visitors to your church
Many church members, pastors and greeters have forgotten what it is like to be a church visitor. Here is a quick list of 6 hints to improve your welcome
How to Get Church Visitor Contact Information
Getting Visitor Contact information is the first step towards your visitor followup, yet many churches fail at it. Listen to this expert on the subject describe different ways and what is the best way.
8 Church Connection Card Templates
Thinking about redoing your church connection cards? They need updating and greater simplicity. Here are some examples and commentary on some church connection card templates you might want to consider
How to A Lose First Time Guest to your Church
Carey Nieuwhof did a great podcast interview with Greg Atkinson on looking for a church and it is well worth a listen. This quote really captured my ear: “What’s surprising to me about the factors Greg outlines is that they’re actually simple hospitality, people, and facility related things.” The key word there is SIMPLE. That …
Video:How a Great Welcome made a difference
I watched the story. I found myself near tears. It is the story of a church that welcomed a first time guest and made such a great "welcome home" impact that another soul was added to the kingdom of God in a matter of weeks. This is what "well done" looks like.
Someone found a spiritual home.
Guest Assimilation: A Roadmap to success
Churches that don't have a clear, simple and logical path for visitors to follow send out some conflicting messages! Members think they're a welcoming church, but the church guests experience something different.
The loving bonds of friendship that tie the church members together end up becoming barriers to those who'd like to elbow their way into the congregation! Read more. . . .
Make it easy for them, pastor.
38 Resource Links for Your Welcome Ministry
A resource compilation of 38 articles related to church hospitality, church greeters and welcome ministry.
Church Hospitality Well Done: It was a no brainer to return
In a powerful video, a church goer describes the hospitality experience that made it a no-brainer for her to return.
How to Give An Extra Large Welcome in an Extra Small Church
How can the extra-small church give a good welcome?
It can be done. We were welcomed into a small church of under 40 people and stayed in spite of their obvious shortcomings - why?
8 Lessons from My Church Shopping Experience
Our family has been the church shopper. We moved to a new city, had no friends in that city, and looked for a church where our family could give our time, talents, and treasure. We wanted a place where we could invest our lives for this new chapter of life. Here are 8 lessons I learned from making several visits over the past year before we found a church home.
Mothers Day Church Greetings that Honor All Mothers
Mothers Day can create awkwardness at church? How would you honor all mothers without that awkwardness?
Confessions of a Church Shopper #7: An Easter 2015 Church Visit
It was Easter Sunday. We attended a traditional church in a mainline tradition. It was the traditional service, one of 3 main services on a Sunday morning. Full robes were worn by the hand bell team and the full choir. The pastor wore a suit and tie. We sang the awesome hymns of Easter accompanied …
Church Shopping Visit Number 6
We were prepared to be the first time church visitor in our new home town of Port St. Lucie Florida. The church planting team we are a part of has taken a holiday break, so our family was free on a Sunday morning to be that first time visitor and experience once again the challenge of …
Confessions of a Church Shopper – Can I make a friend?
We tried for 6 weeks to make friends at a church we thought we'd become a part of. Yet we could never seem to find how the way in.
Useful Small Talk at the Church Welcome Center
In our family’s current journey of looking for a church, we empathize anew with Christian families that are new movers and have to find a new church on their own. I am re-discovering is the value of small talk when engaging your first time visitor. (Read these 20 Crazy Church Greeter Comments). Our church visit …
Oops! We used the wrong door – A church visit story
We found our way to the church parking lot, in a round about way. We drove past the one driveway and found the second driveway was roped off. We drove around the city block to once again approach the one and only OPEN driveway. As our family makes a trek to the third church …
What you can learn from our church shopping experience
In the summer of 2014, our family moved to central Florida due to an expansion of our ministry’s vision and reach. We are new movers into the community. We have no friends yet. We are a blank slate looking for a church. We are the first time visitor. We are the church shopper. I wrote up …
Should unbelievers be invited to church?
A year ago, I posted this question to the EvangelismCoach.org Facebook page. “Should we invite unsaved friends to church?” Give a Yes or No, and then give a reason. The answers were pretty divided between Yes and No, with some strong opinions: Yes, the church is on an evangelistic mission. No, the church is for …
Regular hospitality training would fix this awkward experience
Once again, my family got to be the first time church visitors this past weekend. We chose a church that had 3 Sunday services, and an approximate weekend attendance of 1500 people. They have much of the hospitality systems in place, but it may be time for a hospitality training refresher for their volunteers.
Ask EvangelismCoach: That leader keeps the sanctuary empty!
I know first hand the uncomfortable awkwardness when church visitors show up 10 minutes early to get a seat and the sanctuary is empty except for a few musicians finishing a review rehearsal, and church members arriving up to 30 minutes late. Recently, a reader submitted a question via Ask EvangelismCoach, concerning a Sunday School …