Your Entry Point Matters

I love my garage. When we moved from Arizona to Orlando, I wanted to make sure we bought a house with extra room in the garage. I use my garage to store my car and work on it. We also have an extra freezer, paint, bikes and whole lot of other stuff.

The funniest thing is nine out of 10 times we use the garage to go into the house. Entering the house through the garage, isn’t usually a clear path inside.

But where do you point guests when they come to your house? I know the last place we would want a guest to go is through our garage to come inside. Family and close friends might occasionally walk through the garage, but first-time guests…not a chance!

Why? Honestly, it’s more comfortable for us and I also think it’s more comfortable for them.

Thinking from a similar point of view, let’s talk about the church. When it comes to a guests’ experience in the church, each church must pay attention to three important steps along the way: clarify, create and compete. Let me explain.

Most guests will make up their mind if they want to come back to your church before the sermon is ever preached. That is typically the case for people with no church background. Thus, ushering your guests into your church through the garage is bad idea and a poor strategy.

Clarify

The first step to improving guest experience is clarifying entry points and next steps for all guests. Here are a few questions that will help bring clarity to the process.

1. Where do we want guests to park?

Consider giving all guests special parking privileges. Set up signs that are readable from the front of a car that point new people where to go. It’s helpful to use language that makes sense and is comfortable for guests. Think “New Here? Park Here.” This is a non-threatening way for guests to find their place without saying “I am a guest!”

2. Where do you want guests to walk?

This is the point at which good signage is needed. Do you have signs? And if so, do they make sense to the average person? Do non-church people know what sanctuary means? Your goal is make it as simple as possible for new people to know where to go and to help them find their place quickly. Here are some other helpful things to consider for guests: Do they know what to do with their children? Does the children’s space feel safe? Are the bathrooms easy to find, etc.?

3. Do we regularly present a friendly atmosphere for people in the community to come and feel accepted just as they are?

Every week should be considered an outreach opportunity and should provide a doorway for every person of your community.

Create

This is where things get practical. Work to create a team that owns and even designs the entry way of the church to appeal to those in the community. Here are some more things to think about:

1. Is the physical environment appealing and relevant?

My garage is full of dirt, oils stains and weird smells seeping out of the garbage can. It would be embarrassing to take a first-time guest to my home through the garage. Thus, people from the community need an entry point to your church that is welcoming and appealing. That means it needs to be clutter free and prepared as if you were having guests over. The parking lot, hallways, bathrooms, lobby, children’s environment and auditorium need to be taken care of and created in such a way that they all are appealing to first-time guests from the community.

2. Do we create an engaging experience?

Not only does the environment need to be nice, the church experience needs to be engaging. And just as I mentioned above, engagement needs to start in the parking lot. Look for ways to make the experience fun and add a little “wow” moment for first-timers. Always leverage your most engaging people.

3. Are we answering the questions people are asking?

I can’t tell you how many times I have walked into a church or even a business and noticed they were paying attention to details that didn’t matter to me. All the content given on a Sunday needs to be practical, helpful and applicable to everyday life. Helpful content doesn’t mean it’s watered down, it means it is understandable and relevant. Can people apply what they don’t understand?

Compete

The last thing you have to pay attention to is competing opportunities. There are people and opportunities that have good intentions that will get in the way of connecting with first-time guests. Over time, complaints, or let’s call them “suggestions,” can crowd the entry point for new people. The doorway to connecting with God is narrow, and we need to compete for the space to help those who are far from God to come to meet, know and love Jesus.

One way to compete well and keep the mission alive is to constantly remind your teams that every week is someone’s first Sunday. That one piece of insight will help keep people on mission. Share stories of how people got invited to church and eventually gave their life to Jesus. Those stories fuel the mission.

Growing Your Volunteer Base

The best advertising is word of mouth. That holds true in the marketplace and in any ministry area. Word of mouth recommendations are the most trusted source for accurate information and zeal. Most of us buy products, eat at restaurants, choose doctors, and even hair products based on a friend's recommendation.

Why is this important in the church? When your volunteers love their area of ministry, they will tell their friends. Thus, you have to be willing to ask yourself, "Do our volunteers love their ministry?"

If so, are you encouraging them to share stories about what they do with others in the church and even outside the church? When volunteers are happy and feel like they are helping accomplish the overall vision of the church - they will share their stories with others and invite others to experience what they love.

Here are six ways to assist happy volunteers to recruit others:

• At your next volunteer meeting, give everyone a small piece of paper and ask them, to write down three names of potential volunteers.
• Send an email to all your connections with a detailed description of the role you are looking to fill and ask for names of people that might fit the role or might be interested.
• Empower and encourage your volunteers to go after others.
• Have detailed descriptions of each volunteer role, outlining key expectations
• Celebrate the wins of volunteers and of the ministry regularly
• Pray with your current volunteer team for others to join the team

What other ways are you helping empower, encourage and enlist your current volunteer base to reach more potential volunteers?

5 Things to Increase Giving

"I wish we just had more money.” I have heard many pastors say that very thing. The reality is, ministry and money go hand-in-hand. Pastors often feel under the gun to generate more money to help fund more ministry initiatives. Most pastors aren't lacking vision as much as they are funding. There are some basic things churches and leaders can do that help foster a spirit of generosity or, if poorly executed, can have a negative impact on generosity.

Here are six things to consider implementing that will foster a spirit of generosity:

1. Have multiple giving venues

There are many statistics showing per-member giving increases as churches offer more giving venues. What opportunities can churches provide? I recommend all churches provide these four venues at a minimum: offering during the worship service, online giving, mailed offering envelopes to regular attenders and givers and automatic deductions from members’ bank accounts. Consider two more options to implement: giving kiosks in the lobby and having small group ministries occasionally take an offering.

2. Purposeful and meaningful vision with goals

People will give more if they see the church has a goal that will make a difference. “Increasing total gifts by 10 percent” is not a meaningful goal or vision. People wonder what return their money will have. Giving 10 percent more to move the gospel forward in a specific zip code is more meaningful.

3. Talk and teach on money

If you are leading you will talk about money and stewardship. Jesus talked about it regularly and taught us money is a way to see the heart. It is inexcusable as pastors and leaders to not talk and teach on the theology of stewardship. Consider using a new member orientation as another avenue to teach people about giving and to give clear expectations.

4. Have a transparent financial reporting system

There are people and will always be people in your church that care about your numbers. If people sense that pertinent financial information is being withheld or miscommunicated, they tend to give less or nothing at all. While that does not mean every financial statement provides endless details, it does indicate that church members will have a clear idea of how funds are given and spent.

A few things to consider: a) Send out quarterly giving statements with details on where people are at in their yearly giving. Always have a letter that accompanies the statement, clearly spelling out the vision of the church and connecting the dots for people to see how their money is making an eternal difference. b) At the end of each fiscal year give a state-of-the-church report with enough detail about the current financial setting and goals for the coming year. c) Talk about money as much as possible from a positive viewpoint rather than from guilt or fear.

5. Provide opportunities for people to give to special projects

Some people are project people. Having specific goals will compel some to give in big ways. In your quarterly statements, consider sending a list of current needs, including everything from TVs, to furniture, wall art and even a church van. You never know who might step up to fill a much-needed hole.