LifeWay published an article by Rick Ezell addressing five significant facts about people visiting your church for the first time and gives five actions your church can take to make them want to come back.
Fact #1 - Your visitors make up their minds regarding your church in the first ten minutes. Action #1 - Ask yourself:
Are parking lot attendants in place?
Is there appropriate signage?
Are your ushers and greeters performing the right job?
Is the environment user-friendly and accepting to guests?
Fact #2 - Most church members are not friendly. Action #2 - Encourage your church family to:
Introduce themselves with genuineness.
Find out if guests have questions about the church.
Introduce guests to others who may have an affinity or connection.
Fact #3 - Church guests are highly consumer-oriented. Action #3 - Consider employing objective, yet trained, anonymous guests to give an honest appraisal. Many restaurants, retail stores, and hotels utilize the service of one or more “mystery guests†to provide helpful analysis of welcoming and responding to the consumer.
Fact #4 - The church is in the hospitality business. Action #4 - Encourage members to extend hospitality to guests by offering:
to sit with them during the church service.
to give them a tour of the church facilities.
to eat lunch with them after service.
Fact #5 - You only have one chance to make a good first impression. Action #5 - Use the following questions as an evaluation tool:
Are you creating the entire experience, beginning with your parking lot?
Are you consciously working to remove barriers that make it difficult for guests to find their way around and to feel at home with your people?
Do newcomers have all the information they need without having to ask any embarrassing questions?
Are your greeters and ushers on the job, attending to details and anticipating needs before they are expressed?
Does anything about your guests’ first experience make them say, “Wow!†and want to return?
You can read the complete text of the article on LifeWay’s website. How many of these actions is your church already performing? How many do you need to start doing?
If you are a pastor and plan on growing your church past 150 people, put The Multi-Site Church Revolution on your list of books to read. Written by Geoff Surratt of Seacoast Church (Mount Pleasant, SC) and Greg Ligon and Warren Bird of Leadership Network, this book explores the mechanics and the history of the multi-site church movement. It highlights five models for multi-site churches and gives valuable guidance for churches wanting to transition to more than one site.
The book estimates that one-third of American churches could be successful multi-site churches. Your church may be one of them. Here is just a taste of what the book has to offer:
The purpose of becoming a multi-site church is to make more and better disciples by bringing the church closer to where people are.
The attitude motivating most multi-sites is relational. The desire is to do more than proclaim the gospel, establishing a presence and relationship as well.
Finding, training, and deploying effective leaders are the keys to successfully building a church in more than one location.
Remember that multi-site isn’t a vision by itself, but a vehicle to achieve the vision.
Don’t underestimate the many contexts in which a multi-site approach can significantly help fulfill your church’s mission.
Multi-site multiplies ministry exponentially because it maximizes seats at optimal attendance hours, and its return on investment in and money and people is far greater.
For those of you whose youth group or college ministry uses countdowns or intro videos before service, you may like Amturian Media’s new DVD, Larry Linguist presents Service Starts Now.
You can choose from 8 episodes to open the service, and each one is hosted by Larry Linguist (a fictional character). It is not your typical intro video or countdown but is somewhere in between as Larry and ninjas, a pole vaulter, a time traveler, and many other guests interact and eventually let you know “Service Starts Now.”
Preview an episode as Larry hosts a battle between a martial artist who wants the service to start and a martial artist who doesn’t want the service to start. If you minister to middle school, high school, or college students, you may want to consider this new approach by Amturian Media.
Sometimes a good photograph is all that is needed to take a design from good to great.
However, it can be difficult to find that right photo for a reasonable price. Not too long ago, quality photos were only available at premium rates, but then iStockphoto.com came along. If you are a designer, you are probably already aware of them. But for those of you who haven’t heard, iStockphoto.com offers:
a collection of over 867,000 royalty-free stock images
$1 web-ready photos
$3 print-ready photos
$5 full page photos
$10 full page bleed photos
$20-$40 double page spread photos
Also, if you become a member (it’s free), you can download a free photo of their choice every week. Check it out.
Well, maybe they are not quite secrets, but they are definitely little known facts (or assumed facts).
1.7% of all U.S. parents who are taking care of children are stay-at-home-dads (143,000 dads). That number has doubled since 1995. -U.S. Census
Since 1970, the number of single fathers has grown from 400,000 to 2.3 million. -U.S. Census
18% of single parents living with their children are men. -U.S. Census
40% of guys would consider staying at home with their kids. -2003 Careerbuilder.com Survey but another study shows 56% of men would consider staying at home with their kids. -2004 Spike TV Poll
42% of men attend religious service once a week. -2004 Spike TV Poll
44% of fathers say they don’t spend as much time as they would like with their kids. -2004 Spike TV Poll
48% of men have trouble sleeping. -2004 Spike TV Poll
48% of men are uncomfortable discussing personal problems. -2004 Spike TV Poll
56% of men have been to a strip club. -2004 Spike TV PollÂ
57% of men support equal partnership in marriage. -2004 Spike TV Poll
68%Â are concerned about making ends meet. -2004 Spike TV Poll
70% of men are watching their weight. -2004 Spike TV Poll
72% of men would sacrifice pay and job opportunities for more time with their families. -2004 Spike TV Poll
79% of men have looked at a pornographic magazine. -2004 Spike TV Poll
79% of men have a personal relationship with God. -2004 Spike TV Poll Â
83% of men say religion is important in their lives. -2004 Spike TV Poll
The better you understand someone, the more likely it is that your church can effectively reach them. While these numbers with the exception of the U.S. Census may not be exact, they do provide some interesting insight into understanding the lifestyles, needs, and problems facing the American male.Â
Special thanks to AlterNet for highlighting the facts and sources.
Well actually, they are all the same thing according to a New York Magazine article highlighted this morning by CataBlog (the blog of Catalyst). Essentially, these grups are people who appear to be grown-ups but still act like they are 22 years old. Their lifestyle is unprecedented, and in order to be reached, they need churches who can understand their unique differences. Perhaps you’ve met a Grup. Perhaps you haven’t. If you live in New York, odds are you have. Consider these excerpts from the article:
They are a generation or two of affluent, urban adults who are now happily sailing through their thirties and forties, and even fifties, clad in beat-up sneakers and cashmere hoodies, content that they can enjoy all the good parts of being a grown-up (a real paycheck, a family, the warm touch of cashmere) with none of the bad parts (Dockers, management seminars, indentured servitude at the local Gymboree).
This cascade of pioneering immaturity is no longer a case of a generation’s being stuck in its own youth. This generation is now, if you happen to be under 25, more interested in being stuck in your youth.
There is no fundamental generation gap anymore. (referencing parent-teen relationships)
For a Grup, professional success is measured not by how many employees you have but by how much freedom you have to walk, or boogie board, away.
You see, it’s not that Grups don’t want to work; they just don’t want to work for you. In a recent Money magazine poll about bosses, 54% of the respondents said they would not want their boss’s job no matter how much money you paid them.
Could it be that the same methods winning over youth groups and college ministries to Christ are the same methods that will reach the Grups? Maybe. It depends on the Grup. One thing is certain; Grups prioritize doing what they are passionate about. They saw their parents work jobs and live disciplined lives that lacked passion. Now Grups are living the opposite extreme wanting themselves and their children to enjoy every second of life.
Regardless of your personal opinion of Grups, what is your church doing to reach them and develop them into effective disciples of Christ?
Quite a few churches have discovered the power of video. Video can provide a great sermon illustration or the perfect intro. Its possibilities are almost limitless.
Some of the best video I have seen used by churches has come from a small production company in Texas called Make & Do Creative. In addition to working with ministries, they have produced works for Walt Disney Company and MTV.
Check out this highlight reel from their website:
Their website also features full-length intros, commercials, music videos, and short films created for ministry. Be sure to watch:
Dave Ferguson of Community Christian Church (Naperville, IL) shared last week seven steps his church takes for creating all-church initiatives. They are simple principles that your ministry can follow to better reach its goals and build momentum.
Prayer: It is amazing what prayer can do. It prepares hearts, prepares paths, and gives guidance.
Leadership Gathering: Meet with key leaders of your church to brainstorm, prioritize, and narrow down the list of objectives for the year. Dave Ferguson’s team narrows their list down to 3 to 5 things. Of course your church may be tempted to do every single goal you brainstorm, but remember that you have limited resources and need to determine which goals are most important.
Develop a Strategy: Objectives are great, but they are worthless if you do not know how to accomplish them. Determine how your church will be able to reach these goals. Look for ways to make your strategy more efficient.
Cast the Vision: There are a number of ways your church can rally the congregation to support the vision and get them excited about the goals. Dave Ferguson’s team creates an event for all of the churches leaders and key workers where they communicate the vision and motivate the leadership.
Implement: At some point, all the talk must become reality. All the sweat of preparation and prayer will pay off when you implement your strategy to reach your goals.
Communicate Progress: To keep people excited and passionate about carrying out the vision, be sure to communicate progress. Reaching milestones is like a breath of fresh air that motivates the congregation to keep pressing on. It gives a glimpse that all of the hard work is not in vain but is making a difference. And that is exciting.
Celebrate: You’ve prayed; you’ve prepared; you’ve worked hard. At some point, you will reach your goals, and when you do, celebrate. There is nothing like a reward for hard work to refresh and motivate people to begin working on the next set of goals.
Those are seven great steps from Dave and his team. Remember them. Use them.
You can choose from 8 episodes to open the service, and each one is hosted by Larry Linguist (a fictional character). It is not your typical intro video or countdown but is somewhere in between as Larry and ninjas, a pole vaulter, a time traveler, and many other guests interact and eventually let you know “Service Starts Now.”
