{"id":4012,"date":"2015-10-21T05:00:43","date_gmt":"2015-10-21T10:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomrainer.com\/?p=4012"},"modified":"2020-02-07T15:17:19","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T21:17:19","slug":"seven-great-and-seven-bad-experiences-of-first-time-church-guests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-great-and-seven-bad-experiences-of-first-time-church-guests\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Great and Seven Bad Experiences of First-time Church Guests"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you want to make an immediate difference in your church, read these fourteen brief experiences. The readers at ThomRainer.com responded to an informal Twitter survey about their experiences as first-time guests in churches, both good and bad.<\/p>\n

I chose seven from each of the good and bad experiences. My decision to choose those in this article was largely based on what I see and read on a regular basis. In other words, these \u201c7 + 7\u201d represent issues that are common in many churches. The good experiences, in particular, represent some of the best practices of healthy churches.<\/p>\n

After each of the fourteen experiences, I cite a lesson to be learned. I hope these lessons can have specific application in your church. Most of the quotes are verbatim. Some have been slightly modified without changing the essence of the comment.<\/p>\n

Seven Great Experiences<\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. \u201cThey went out of the way to make my children calm and happy.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Many guests are looking for something in a church for their children. Go out of the way to make the children happy and safe.<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cA lady befriended us and took us to her small group.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Assimilation and discipleship are highly effective in small groups. This church member was on target.<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cThe pastor offered to take us to lunch.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Connections with the pastor are highly effective in getting guests to return. Churches should consider including in the budget a meal fund for their pastor to take guests to lunch.<\/li>\n
  4. \u201cA church member wrote our children a letter after meeting us.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Personal and individual attention can go a long way toward reaching guests.<\/li>\n
  5. \u201cThe church was clean and had great signage.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: First impressions are very important to connect with first-time guests. Cleanliness and signage communicates: \u201cWe care.\u201d<\/li>\n
  6. \u201cA church member invited us to lunch.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Churches need to make certain their friendliness is more than a perfunctory greeting. This action by the church member was great.<\/li>\n
  7. \u201cWe were greeted in the parking lot and walked to where we were supposed to go.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Well-trained parking lot greeters can be a huge factor in guest retention. These greeters did it the right way.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Seven Bad Experiences<\/h2>\n
      \n
    1. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what they were talking about. It was a lot of internal language and acronyms.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Don\u2019t expect guests to speak your churchy language. Expect them not to return if you do.<\/li>\n
    2. \u201cNo one spoke to us.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Most churches perceive they are friendly, but they are not. Members only speak to those they know.<\/li>\n
    3. \u201cWe were given ear plugs when we walked in.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Know what you\u2019re communicating by your actions. In this case, they were saying the guests were too old for the music, or the music was too loud for everyone.<\/li>\n
    4. \u201cMy wife and I are a mixed race couple. The greeter suggested we might be at the wrong church.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Don\u2019t be stupid.<\/li>\n
    5. \u201cThe friendliness seemed contrived and fake.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: If the members are only friendly during a time of greeting, it can actually be perceived more negatively than no friendliness at all.<\/li>\n
    6. \u201cThey asked us to stand up and introduce ourselves.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Such a request is terrifying to many people. Don\u2019t do it.<\/li>\n
    7. \u201cThe greeter gave me a children\u2019s bulletin and told me I could color on it. I\u2019m twenty years old.\u201d <\/strong>Lesson: Some greeters have no business being greeters.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Share with me some of your experiences. Let me hear from you about your feelings about these fourteen experiences. Let us hear about the good, the bad, and the ugly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After each of the fourteen experiences, I cite a lesson to be learned. I hope these lessons can have specific application in your church.","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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-4012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-first-impressions","category-grow"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSeven Great and Seven Bad Experiences of First-time Church Guests<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After each of the fourteen experiences, I cite a lesson to be learned. 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