{"id":3068,"date":"2014-11-08T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2014-11-08T11:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thomrainer.wpengine.com?p=3068"},"modified":"2020-02-07T15:19:16","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T21:19:16","slug":"six-reasons-church-might-friendly-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/six-reasons-church-might-friendly-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Reasons Your Church Might Not Be As Friendly As You Think It Is"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe are the friendliest church in town.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I have heard that statement thousands of times. I promise. In over 500 church consultations and thousands of church member interviews, I heard it. Most church members really do think their church is very friendly.<\/p>\n

But, more times than not, they are wrong. Guests who visit the churches usually have a much different perspective. Here are six things to consider if you really think your church is friendly.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Almost all church leaders consider their church friendly. <\/strong>But we have strong evidence to the contrary. We have learned that self-perception (or perception of one\u2019s church) often does not meet reality.<\/li>\n
  2. Volumes of survey data from church guests indicate that very few churches are really friendly. <\/strong>Our surveys over a ten-year period indicate that over eight in ten guests did not consider the church they visited to be friendly.<\/li>\n
  3. Many church members perceive their church to be friendly because they have established relationships in the church. <\/strong>But church guests typically do not have those relationships in the church. They, thus, see the church differently.<\/li>\n
  4. Many church members see their church as friendly because they have a brief stand and greet time in the worship service. <\/strong>This issue has drawn a lot of attention at this blog<\/a>. I think we can all agree, however, that there is much more to genuine friendliness than a two-minute greeting time.<\/li>\n
  5. We found that most guests who think a church is unfriendly never let anyone in the church know. <\/strong>They simply leave and never return.<\/li>\n
  6. We found no significant evidence that church members are connecting with unchurched persons and bringing them to a worship service. <\/strong>It would seem that genuine friendliness would result in an influx of non-believers. That just has not happened.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Do you think your church is genuinely friendly? Upon what facts do you base your perception? What can your church do to become friendlier to guests?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Let me hear from you.<\/p>\n

    \n

    photo credit: gb_packards (Mike)<\/a> via photopin<\/a> cc<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most church members really do think their church is very friendly.","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,179,175,186,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-first-impressions","category-grow","category-health-and-metrics","category-revitalize"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSix Reasons Your Church Might Not Be As Friendly As You Think It Is<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Most church members really do think their church is very friendly.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/six-reasons-church-might-friendly-think\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Six Reasons Your Church Might Not Be As Friendly As You Think It Is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Most church members really do think their church is very friendly.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/six-reasons-church-might-friendly-think\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-08T11:00:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-07T21:19:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/large_6312930278.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"404\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Thom S. 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