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[Repost] How to get Easter Guests to Come Back to your Church

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

A couple of years ago I wrote a post on how to get guests who come to Easter services at your church to come back to your church. It went on to be one of the top 10 most popular posts on my blog that year. With Easter weekend coming up I thought I’d share it with you again in an effort to help you think through any last minute opportunities to leverage Easter to its fullest at your church and help guests come back.

In a couple of days churches all across the country are going to be hosting guests at their Easter services, hoping they say yes to following Jesus, and hoping that they come back the next week and get connected in the life of their church. I hope that happens too. But hope is not a strategy.

Here’s a couple of ideas that should help you develop a strategy to keep those guests coming back well after Easter.

1. Help Guests Self-Identify

Instead of head hunting for guests, create simple ways for guests to let you know that they are there. Guest parking, children’s check-in, a physical guest services location, and a communication card located in your church program or bulletin are all simple ways to create avenues for guests to let you know they are there, when they’re ready to let you know.

2. Don’t Spam People

Please don’t show up on people’s doorstep or bombard them with multiple emails and letters the week following Easter. Many of the companies out there that are the best at guest services don’t overtly pursue guests. Rather they are available to guests and their needs when their guests engage them and express a need.

3. Make the Next Step Easy

People come to church on Easter for all kinds of reasons, but they’ll stay at a church because of relationships and responsibility. What is the one, clear, simple, and easy step you want all of your guests to take…and why should they take it? How are you going to get guests quickly and easily connected to relationships and responsibility at your church?

4. The More Personal the Better

Instead of sending the same generic follow up letter to everyone make it personal. If guests are giving you personal information such as their name and the names of their children, and if someone is personally greeting them and hosting them then reach out to them in the same personal manner. Why not have the person that greeted them and hosted them write a hand-written card thanking them for being a guest at your church and that they’re looking forward to seeing them again next week.

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Building a Winning Culture at your Church

Sunday, March 25, 2018

In a day where everyone gets participation trophies the idea of winning or losing when it comes to church has become a foreign concept. In fact, I think most churches have become afraid to win. I’m not talking about a game. Church isn’t a game. It’s about something far bigger than that. Much more is on the line. It’s about heaven and hell. The fact is people are dying and going to hell and that’s simply unacceptable.

This why churches must develop a winning culture, it’s simply unacceptable for them not to. Too much is at stake.

While there are a lot of factors that go into building a winning culture at your church here are 6 big differences between winning and losing church team cultures.

1. Fun

Fun may be one of the most underestimated factors to building a winning culture. People are attracted to teams that are fun, they stay on teams that are fun, and they perform better on teams that are fun. You cannot have a bad attitude and play a good game or produce great results.

2. Drive

It takes a certain dogged determination to build a winning culture. There has to be a drive to win. Winning doesn’t just happen by magic or luck, but the will to practice hard…over and over and over again and not give up. 

3. Flexibility

Winning cultures don’t happen on accident. There’s a great deal of planning, strategy and intentionality to it. But there’s also a certain malleability to it all. These teams are willing to adjust strategy mid-stream in order to accomplish the vision. They understand that no plan really survives contact with the enemy.

4. Ridiculous Commitment

These kinds of churches have a serious, borderline ridiculous, commitment to their staff cultural distinctives. They use these cultural makers to hire, fire and coach. They’re so zealous about them that you’ll even hear them say things like, “You’re going to hate working here if you don’t really embrace these things and we’ll probably hate working with you.”

5. Clarity

Winning church teams understand what a win actually looks like. They define what a first down looks like and they keep score. This kind of clarity provides freedom to move at fast pace because everyone knows how to make decisions in view of the win.

6. Throw a Party

What you celebrate gets repeated. Great church teams celebrate wins! They throw parties and they reward team members for great results!

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How to make Guests Feel Uncomfortable at your Church

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

It’s uncomfortable for a person who’s unfamiliar with God and church to go to church for the first time. Often times they feel as though they’re taking a huge risk by even showing up. Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that churches do to make guests feel even more uncomfortable when they go to church for the first time. Here are just a few…

Use Insider Language

Churches are notorious for using cute insider language like the “Butterfly Room” for the 2-year-olds. Just call it the 2-year-old room, that’s going to help guests understand it and not feel like an outsider. No guest knows if their kid should go in the butterfly room or the lady bug room…they’re raising kids not bugs. Also stay away from acrostics…I know every good Christian in America should know what FPU means, but I’m telling you, people who are new to church have no idea what you’re talking about. And if it’s confusing to them it could be the difference in them leaning in towards Jesus or away.

Point them Out

New people love to be singled out and made the center of attention, so make sure you do something like have them all remain seated and have everyone greet them in the worship service at some point. I hope you know that I’m kidding…if you don’t, let me let you in on a little secret…I’m kidding. Don’t point out new guests. Instead think through creative and nonthreatening ways for guests to self-identify themselves and let you know they’re there.

Make it Confusing to Navigate the Building

Make sure that you don’t use clear signage throughout your building. Guests should just know where to go when they come to our church, and if they don’t it’s their own fault. If they came to church more often they’d figure it out. When guests don’t know where to park, don’t know which entrance to go in, and have a difficult time navigating the facility because you haven’t thought about that for them and helped them through great way-finding, that always makes an already awkward situation worse.

Don’t Update your Facilities

That church building that looks and smells like it’s fresh out of 1980…yeah don’t update it, it’s vintage. We don’t need to impress people with our building. We’re here to worship God, not a building. I don’t think church buildings need to be crazy, over the top impressive…but when a church facility is not on par with other public space in the community it’s going to make guests feel uncomfortable.

Have Weird People taking care of their Kids

It’s weird dropping off your kids with someone you’ve never met before. It probably even makes some people feel like bad parents. Dropping off a kid in a room that is dirty and has old carpet, where the toys aren’t clean or a room that smells bad can make guests feel very uncomfortable. Not to mention dropping off kids where there is only a teenager or a male volunteer in the room can plain creep guests out. Oh, and make sure you don’t change their kids diapers and give the kids back to the guests with a dirty diaper…that always makes guests feel comfortable (sarcasm intended).

Ever been uncomfortable visiting a church for the first time? What made it so awkward for you? What are some other things you’ve seen churches do to make guests feel uncomfortable? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear about your experience and observations!

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Why Stress can be a Church Leaders Best Friend

Sunday, March 18, 2018

I came home the other day and my kids had a bowl of flour and a bag of balloons setting out on the kitchen counter. When I asked them what they were doing, they said they were, “making stress balls.” One of the kids had seen a stress ball that a teacher had at school and thought it would be cool to make their own. I get the teacher needing a stress ball…and I was thinking I might need one with the mess they were making…but kids? What do kids need with a stress ball?!?!?

While most people are trying to minimize or avoid stress in their lives, good leaders know that stress can actually be a good thing.

Bad Stress

I’m pretty sure that every reader inherently understands how stress can bring out the worst in us. It can influence to people make awful decisions, bring out unhealthy behaviors and turn good leaders into control freaks and micromanagers. There’s a lot of reasons people experience stress. They can be in a situation that is requiring either more of them than they have to give or less of them than they have to give. Both lead to stress and potentially poor behaviors.

Good Stress

Stress can also be a gift and has the potential to bring out the best in us. When the right amount, of the right kind of stress, is applied in the right way it can bring great focus. It can push us to make decisions we’ve been putting off. It can push you to come up with new solutions. It can make your strengths come alive in you and rise up to meet the stress and lead through it.

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10 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Each month I curate the top 10 most popular blog posts I’ve shared. These are the articles that got had the greatest engagement in the past month. They were the most visited, shared, helpful or disagreed with. At any rate, thanks for staying in contact with me through engaging in the content on this site, I hope it’s been helpful to you! In case you missed any of them here they are all in one nice tidy place for you!

The Difference between Preparation and Planning

Do great organizations prepare for the future or do they plan for it? The answer is, “yes.” To be clear preparation and planning are not the same thing, and great organizations become great by doing both.

How Many People should your Church have on Staff?

Before you buy into the idea that you need another staff person at your church, think again. That just may be the worst decision you make at your church this year.

4 Ways Churches Misspend Money

Churches get funny when it comes to money. Generally, churches have a hard time talking about money publicly and few have a clear generosity strategy. When it comes to financial planning and actually spending money in a way that gets them to the vision God’s called them to, the majority of churches I’ve interacted with are all thumbs.

4 Indicators your Church is Moving in the Wrong Direction

There are a lot of reasons why churches begin to decline and eventually die. Most don’t ever recognize it until they’re really stuck or worse it’s too late to even turn around. But there are some lead indicators that can be early warning signs that things are moving in the wrong direction.

Why Video Teaching Will Work in Your Town Too

When I consult with churches that are considering going multisite one of the key exercises I facilitate with their team centers around how they are going to approach preaching in their weekend worship services. It’s a big conversation and a decision that has significant implications to the model and approach that churches take when it comes to multisite.

8 Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer at your Church 

I’ve never worked with a church that has said they don’t need more volunteers. But I’ve worked with a bunch of churches that have trouble getting people to volunteer and stay engaged volunteering.

Why People Don’t Invite their Friends to your Church

If your church is serious about growing and reaching new people you’ve got to figure out what is keeping people from inviting their friends. While many church leaders blame their people for not inviting their friends because they’re not “spiritually mature enough” or don’t have a “deep burden” for the lost I’d suggest it may be less complicated than that. It may be your fault.

How to Say No to Ministry Opportunities and Why You Should

One of the more difficult things you’ll ever do as a leader of a growing church or organization is to learn to say no to good opportunities.

When to Add Another Worship Service at your Church

Many churches are stuck in attendance simply because they haven’t maximized their current facilities and campus. Thinking about adding another worship service at your church? Here are five strategic concepts to consider before you do.

Video Teaching Versus Live Teaching in a Multisite Church

Since those early days the multisite movement has begun to grow up a bit and today about 50% of the 8,000 (ballpark) multisite churches are delivering teaching via video while the other 50% are using live teaching in their locations. But what are the pros and cons? Which model is best for your church?

 

Posted in Leadership
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