Many books on personal evangelism tell stories of personal fear of evangelism.
Evangelism is scary for many, for a variety of reasons?
Why does one have to be brave?
Here is a list that I have compiled over the years of teaching workshops and seminars and the most common responses that I get to the question
“Why are you afraid of evangelism?”
Pick any blog on personal evangelism, and one will encounter a conversation over different gospel presentations.
On one hand, it’s great to be concerned about messing up. [Read more…] about 6 Different Gospel Presentations for Personal Evangelism
Every church wants their first time visitors to come back and begin to
All of this begins as visitors attend and then connect with your church.
But when they don’t return, you often don’t know what happened.
Perhaps you’ve spent money on advertising like a direct mail campaign or business cards members give away. You’ve designed sermon series to hopefully entice a second visit [Read more…] about Conference: Red Carpet Hospitality Seminar at More Than Enough – Fremont NE April 2018
A church greeter I never met invaded my personal space.
An apathetic church greeter gave me a bulletin while talking to a friend.
A church greeter wore so much cologne that my eyes watered when standing in his presence. [Read more…] about How to Give Constructive Feedback to Your Church Greeters
Every Sunday, I see commentary on Twitter about:
Every church wants their first time visitors to come back and begin to
All of this begins as visitors attend and then connect with your church.
But when they don’t return, you often don’t know what happened.
Perhaps you’ve spent money on advertising like a direct mail campaign or business cards members give away. You’ve designed sermon series to hopefully entice a second visit.
You’ve done a lot of hard work to get visitors to come to your church, but they fail to return.
It’s frustrating to work so hard and then feel like it’s all in vain. It leaves you wondering –
Will our church ever reach new people for Christ?
You don’t know what accidental barriers got in the way of their return to your church.
So they walk out the back door, and you are left wondering. Why did they leave?
When church visitors don’t come back for that second or third visit, your church will not grow.
Every church leader wants their church to have an evangelistic impact in leading people to faith in Christ.
Perhaps you’ve seen that newcomer in your church, but they fail to return.
If visitors don’t return, you can’t help them find faith in Christ.
Do you make a great first impression?
The first step to a return visit starts with a great first impression.
A good first impression can lead to a second visit.
A second visit leads to a third visit.
Additional visits provide more opportunity for your church visitor to make new friends.
Keep your visitors coming back and making friends, and hopefully,
We wanted you to know about more impacts from your time with us. We’ve had a few folks here at Nineveh really engage your teaching on hospitality. The one that sticks with us is the change from “inviting people to return next Sunday” to “finding a friend.”
We’ve had much discussion around giving folks “10 minutes of friendship,” and are reshaping our greeting ministry with that in mind. So thanks for sharing that insight!
I’ve also had some echoes of appreciation for your time with our Presbytery teaching on personal evangelism. Many felt that it’s just what our churches need at this time in our life together.
Emrys Tyler, Pastor
If you are near St. Simons Island, GA (USA), attend this church leaders conference focused on helping you start creatively thinking about ways to solve this puzzle for your congregation.
Some of what you will cover:
I found Chris’ approach extremely helpful as he spoke using a language accessible to clergy and laypersons. He has organized and developed his information which makes it much easier for me to teach elders, deacons, and volunteers to practice hospitality.
Chris provides more than sound bites, he provides a methodology for churches to begin using, so they would then be able to adapt to their own particular context.
Most people charged with serving as greeters in the church may not only have no clue to what they are doing, without this training they may even be harmful to the work of greeting and hospitality.
Chris spent time with the seminar participants to help them move away from a less than gracious approach to newcomers and instead, to see it as a calling or an opportunity to share the peace of Jesus Christ.
Rev. Ernest Gardner, III
Wise church leaders will review their hospitality systems and look for unnecessary barriers that keep those church visitors from coming back. Wise church leaders will do advance hospitality preparations in expectation of new church visitors.
Whether you are the
Wise hospitality ministry leaders will
Doing this kind of review will often reveal a bunch of
Each time your team does a review of it’s systems, you’ll
By improving your welcome of church visitors, you can impress the visitor who is church shopping, whether they are Christian yet or not.
You can have a worship experience that helps people encounter God.
You can put some new touches on your building and grounds to help your visitors and members easily navigate your facility.
At the 31st Annual ASC Conference, you will have time to do this with your team and volunteers.
Come to learn some of the practical ways Chris has discovered to grow your church out of his research, study, and first hand real life experience from serving as a local pastor, planting two churches and doing evangelism work cross culturally in 10 different countries.
Chris has distilled dozens of books and 20 years of hospitality teaching into this one day seminar to help your committee have a laser like focus on these issues. You can follow the trail he’s made, rather than creating one your self.
Event is open to the public and other churches are invited to register and attend.
The deadline for registration is Thursday, February 22, 2018.
Where: Epworth-by-the-Sea. St Simons Island, GA
When: March 16-18, 2018
So you’ve put together a hospitality committee . . .
Some volunteers are new to hospitality ministries and have no idea where to start making improvements.
Other members are appointed by the pastor to fix the problems.
They feel the pressure to “make hospitality work.”
So they search the internet for subjects like:
With so much information available, where do they start to fix the broken system?
Perhaps you were
You don’t need to recreate the wheel.
You just need to somewhere to start.
You just need a refresher to help you get a great overview of your system.
Register Yourself for the 31st Annual ASC Conference
Maybe you realize that your hospitality ministry has run on auto-pilot for the last few years. It has decayed to the point where something has to be done.
Inertia and inefficiency always creep in to systems, and churches are no different.
Perhaps your church has accidentally created barriers to helping that first time visitor decide to return for a following Sunday. It happens when things are running on autopilot.
You don’t give them a good impression, nor wow them with love and welcome.
You simply hand them a bulletin, and maybe say good morning.
You could spend a few thousand dollars on getting people to 100 additional people to attend your service. But if only one out of a hundred return for a second service, you’re successful marketing efforts are wasted on the lack of retention.
If you are planning
then are you ready to receive the people who come, or will a poor welcome undermine all your advance work and prayer?
Hospitality to first time visitors is one critical element to growing your church.
It plays a huge role in helping visitors decide to make that all important second visit.
Your church can make an eternal difference in the life of your visitors, if you can help them come back on a regular basis.
Every church wants their first time church visitors to come back and start connecting.
Every church wants newcomers to connect and find faith, friendships, and a place to serve in the transformation of a community.
Do you have all your church hospitality systems but still feel like your volunteers are disorganized and lack the vision for your church’s hospitality?
How do you create a vision for red carpet church hospitality that is beyond the pastor and church hospitality committee?
Maybe you realize that your hospitality ministry has run on auto-pilot for the last few years. It has decayed to the point where something has to be done.
Inertia and inefficiency always creep in to systems, and churches are no different.
Perhaps your church has accidentally created barriers to helping that first time visitor decide to return for a following Sunday. It happens when things are running on autopilot.
Your systems and processes for your church’s hospitality can always be improved, and decaying systems can be refreshed.
Hospitality ministry is not about marketing to get visitors.
Rather, it is about giving a great impression to your visitor and helping them make a decision to return and learn more about your congregation’s ministry, mission, and people.
Your hospitality ministry can be improved with some attention given to it. This seminar is geared to hospitality teams in small to mid-size churches that want to start, grow, or re-fresh their hospitality ministry.
Chris Walker will help you take your hospitality ministry to the next level at the “31st Annual Association of Smaller Congregations” at Epworth-by-the-Sea, St. Simons Island, GA 31522
March 16-18, 2018
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