Making Our Church Guest-Friendly

We have been experiencing a number of guests in recent weeks and it is good for us to be reminded of how to take care of our guests. Here are some ways you can help to make our guests feel welcome. (Note: all churches think they are friendly, but often times they are friendly to people who have been attending for a long period of time - not new people.) Our desire is to befriend people to Christ!

The first 12 minutes will greatly influence whether or not they return. As they say, "you never get a second chance to make a first impression." When an unchurched person visits church for the first time, their greatest emotion is fear. What will people think? What are they going to do? "Am I going to have to sign something, sing something, sacrifice something, or say something?" They don't know what is going on and it is unnerving.

So our first goal is to help guests (let's not use the term "visitors") to relax. Guests must be relaxed if we are going to be able to communicate with them. Here are some suggestions for you to help make guests welcome:

* Reserve the best parking spot for guests. It just shows you are thinking of them.
* Station greeters outside your building. These greeters need to be strategically placed around the campus to greet guests and help them find their way into the building.
* Set up an information table (we now have a Welcome Center!)
* Have taped music playing when people enter. In America almost every public building has music playing. An interesting observation - if you play soft music, people talk softly. If you play loud music, people talk louder.
* Allow guests to remain anonymous in the service. Don't make them stand up and introduce themselves!
* Offer a warm, casual public welcome that relaxes people. If you want guests to feel welcome, to you have to be at ease yourself. We might say, "If this is your first time here at Valley Grace, we are glad you are here. We want you to take a deep breath, sit back, relax and enjoy the service."
* Begin and end each service by having people greet each other. Five times in the New Testament Christians are told to greet one another and share affection. On your way out after the service, look for someone to greet that you don't know - then you can reconnect with your friends.
*Offer a refreshment table at each service. Today in our society, it doesn't seem appropriate to just stand in a crowd doing nothing (this may be a bit of a challenge for us right now with space considerations).

Thank you for helping us welcome guests who are in search of a relationship with God and a church family to support them in their spiritual journey. If you want to read more on this, you can go here which is the source for this information.
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