Okay...great discussion last week--as you can see by the picture at the right, we're totally listening. We are making progress.
By the way, why not let a friend in on our discussion? You can e-mail this post directly to someone who might have great input.
Let's keep it going--here's the second "fact" from our author's article on visitor retention...
Fact #2 - Most church members are not friendly.
Churches claim to be friendly and may even advertise that fact. But my experience in visiting churches as a first-time guest demonstrates that most church members are friendly to the people they already know, not to guests.
Watch to see if your members greet guests with the same intensity and concern before and after the worship service as they do during a formal time of greeting. The six most important minutes of a church service, in your visitors’ eyes, are the three minutes before the service and the three minutes after the service.
Action - 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.
So, does this "ring" true with you? Have you witnessed anything like this at FVC? What would you do differently to keep our church friendly and open to first time guests?
4 comments:
We are working on the greeting issue, and I think Michelle's new strategy is a great idea, which covers the first 3 minutes before the service. The three minutes after might be a little weak. I know that personally, this time for me is a time to catch up with people I haven't seen all week (at least) and to pick up my kids. So...how do we improve on the "back-end" of church for new people?
Dale, do you find that new visitors take you up on coming back to the library? Not sure how you'd know if they didn't sign the booklets or leave any other trace...
The "fellowship tent" idea might help, too. As long as we encourage the "members" to seek out people who look "new". I think it's important for "members" to feel that they can talk and catch up with other "members" though, and not feel guilty about it, know what I mean?
Lori
Yeah, I see what Lori is saying....we need FVC people to have time to hang out as well. It seems most of the time, first-timers don't really hang afterwards unless they just happen to be a more aggressive person and/or "other-churched". Maybe if we can just keep our eyes peeled, as we are chatting with our friends after the service, for those who are new or kinda hanging by themselves.
We get an OK response in the library meet and greet thingy......alot of times it is 2nd and 3rd timers...but that is OK. We want to allow people their space as well.
We will probably need to re-think the library meet/greet idea. While it looks good on paper, MOST guests will not go out of their way to come and meet the pastor.
I think that Michelle and I may need to just post ourselves at the front door, and greet as many people as possible on their way out...
As far as hangout time for FVC'rs, I totally agree, but wonder if there's another way to facilitate it? The tent idea is fantastic, and maybe this might encourage people to come 5 or 10 minutes earlier BEFORE service begins to do the visiting?
I agree that it may be more beneficial to greet people on their way out. Then you can be direct and ask if they are a visitor and perhaps answer any questions or make them feel welcome in a more direct manner.
If you do this though, be aware that you'll have a huge queue at the door.
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