{"id":3634,"date":"2015-05-20T05:00:50","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T10:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomrainer.com\/?p=3573"},"modified":"2020-02-07T15:17:19","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T21:17:19","slug":"seven-things-church-members-should-say-to-guests-in-a-worship-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-church-members-should-say-to-guests-in-a-worship-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Things Church Members Should Say to Guests in a Worship Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the more common questions I\u2019m asked relates to growth barriers. For example, church leaders may want to know how to move past the 150-attendance level of the past five years. Or other leaders desire to know how to break though financial giving barriers.<\/p>\n

Those questions are tough because they often presume a brief response to be adequate. In reality, there are many theological and methodological issues at work in growth barriers. Today, I am looking at a very basic barrier: lack of friendliness to church guests.<\/p>\n

In a previous blog post<\/a>, I noted things we should not<\/em> say to a guest in our worship services. In today’s post\u00a0I look at the positive perspective: seven things we should<\/em> say to guests.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cThank you for being here.\u201d <\/strong>It\u2019s just that basic. I have heard from numerous church guests who returned because they were simply told \u201cthank you.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cLet me help you with that.\u201d <\/strong>If you see someone struggling with umbrellas, young children, diaper bags, purses, and other items, a gesture to hold something for them is a huge positive. Of course, this comment is appropriate for member to member as well.<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cPlease take my seat.\u201d <\/strong>I actually heard that comment twice in a church where I was speaking in the Nashville area. The first comment came from a member to a young family of five who were trying to find a place to sit together.<\/li>\n
  4. \u201cHere is my email address. Please let me know if I can help in any way.\u201d <\/strong>Of course, this comment must be used with discretion, but it can be a hugely positive message to a guest.<\/li>\n
  5. \u201cCan I show you where you need to go?\u201d <\/strong>Even in smaller churches, guests will not know where to find the nursery, restrooms, and small group meeting areas. You can usually tell when a guest does not know where he or she is to go.<\/li>\n
  6. \u201cLet me introduce you to ___________.\u201d <\/strong>The return rate of guests is always higher if they meet other people. A church member may have the opportunity to introduce the guest to the pastor, other church staff, and other members of the church.<\/li>\n
  7. \u201cWould you join us for lunch?\u201d <\/strong>I saved this question for last for two reasons. First, the situation must obviously be appropriate before you offer the invitation. Second, I have seen this approach have the highest guest return rate of any one factor. What if your church members sought to invite different guests 6 to 12 times a year? The burden would not be great; but the impact would be huge.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Let\u2019s look at one example of breaking attendance barriers by saying the right things to guests. Presume your church has two first-time guests a week. Over the course of a year, the church would have 100 first-time guests. With most of the members being genuinely guest friendly, you could see half of those guests become active members. Attendance could thus increase by as much as 50 persons every year.<\/p>\n

    Good interaction with guests is a huge step toward breaking attendance barriers, but it is obviously not the only step. <\/em>We are launching a new subscription ministry called Church Answers. One of the three resources you will get every month<\/em> is called \u201cBreaking Barriers.\u201d We are so excited about the response so far. You can register here<\/strong><\/a>. But registration closes in a few days, so hurry.<\/p>\n

    I always look forward to your comments and questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good interaction with guests is a huge step toward breaking attendance barriers, but it is obviously not the only step.","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2379,"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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-first-impressions","category-grow"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSeven Things Church Members Should Say to Guests in a Worship Service<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Good interaction with guests is a huge step toward breaking attendance barriers, but it is obviously not the only step.\" \/>\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\/seven-things-church-members-should-say-to-guests-in-a-worship-service\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seven Things Church Members Should Say to Guests in a Worship Service\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Good interaction with guests is a huge step toward breaking attendance barriers, but it is obviously not the only step.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-church-members-should-say-to-guests-in-a-worship-service\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-20T10:00:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-07T21:17:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/large__9553921141.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Thom S. 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