What happens after a first-time guest visits your church? Your follow-up letter can influence whether they return. I share four real-life examples that reveal what works—and what misses the mark—so your next visitor feels valued and invited back for more.
A church can have greeters, signage, visitor parking, and gifts yet still miss real welcome. This first-time visit story shows how strong systems failed without a living vision. Use it with your team to renew purpose, notice new people, and invite them back. Finish with the Coaching Corner and a concrete next step.
Pastors can refresh their church’s vision for hospitality in less than five minutes. Learn how short reminders and sermon moments can reawaken your congregation to welcome guests with warmth and purpose—and discover new ways to strengthen your church hospitality team.
Your church hospitality team helps guests experience the love of God through warm, genuine service. As you strengthen your hospitality program, consider these key focus areas and practical duties that shape a welcoming, caring church environment.
Discover practical examples of what greeters can say to first-time church visitors, from simple one-liners to heartfelt introductions. Use these real-life greetings and coaching tips to help your team create a warm first impression that helps guests feel noticed and valued.
44 Scriptures that might be useful in a Father's Day Sermon or Message. Think about your church visitors on Father's Day
Will they hear the gospel clearly that day? Will the gospel impact their life? Will the sermon and worship experience leave your visitors wanting to come back next week and bring a friend?
As you plan for this year's celebration of Mother's Day at your church, here are 7 things you can do to prepare your church beforehand.
What are some steps you can take to restart a failing welcome ministry for your church visitors? Read these tips to help your disorganized hospitality ministry get going again.
Mother’s Day is the third most attended church day in the U.S., just behind Christmas and Easter.
Let some of these Bible Verses shape your prayer and preparation as you prepare your sermon.
Your church can make an eternal difference in the life of your Christmas first-time visitors -- if you can help them come back on a regular basis.
Make a great first impression.
Five body language observations that can help your church greeters detect first-time church visitors
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:
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.
In a powerful video, a church goer describes the hospitality experience that made it a no-brainer for her to return.
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.
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 …
Could the same principles that create a five star hotel be applied to the church and its hospitality? That is the basic structure of the fictional conversation between a pastor and staff and the general manager of a five star hotel, as mapped out in the book The Five Star Church: Serving God and His …
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 …
I love answering reader questions. I usually get to answer right away, and sometimes they are such great questions that I want to share them with you all, with permission I thank you so much for giving me ideas on how to improve my hospitality department. I am in a small church and the hospitality …
Looking back over the past year, some particular blog posts rose to the top for 2013. Please consider sharing this post, or some of these with other believers in your network. In this post you’ll see some of the most popular posts of 2013 in
During a recent church visitor assimilation webinar (available now for purchase), we discussed some excellent resources on the assimilation process. One participant recommended a short book on hospitality ministry that was helpful to them. See You Next Week is a short text crammed full of ideas that could help your church get started in improving …
I would love for you to have success in church greeter recruiting and for you to have more volunteers for church greeters ministry than spaces you could fill. However, I’m not sure there are churches where people fight to be volunteer church greeters. If you find yourself struggling to recruit volunteers for your greeting ministry, …
Visiting a church in a different tradition taught us three big lessons about church hospitality. We felt welcome as people, yet lost in the service. Let me coach your hospitality committee through three practical steps I learned.
If you had a $2500 budget to spend on improving your church for a better welcome, where would you spend it? This could be a great discussion starter for your hospitality committee to help reveal some dreams and vision development. Use it as a brainstormer an capture the ideas. If you had $2500 to spend, …
