{"id":695174,"date":"2019-10-14T02:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T07:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomrainer.com\/?p=695174"},"modified":"2020-02-07T15:50:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T21:50:35","slug":"top-ten-ways-churches-drive-away-first-time-guests-re-visited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/top-ten-ways-churches-drive-away-first-time-guests-re-visited\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Ten Ways Churches Drive Away First-Time Guests (Re-visited)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Thom S. Rainer<\/strong><\/p>\n

The research and the post got me in trouble five years ago.<\/p>\n

So, why am I re-visiting this issue?<\/p>\n

Over the past few weeks, I have been involved in micro consultations. We bring ten pastors together for one and one-half days of intensive training and practical planning. With four of these micros completed with forty pastors, I still hear how important this issue is.<\/p>\n

We want people to visit our churches. We want them to return so they can have multiple opportunities to hear the gospel and connect with believers. But many do not return. Why? In a social media poll, I heard from over 1,000 persons sharing their experiences of being \u201cone and done.\u201d They visited a church one time but did not return. Five years ago, these were their top reasons. Not much has changed in their responses today.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Having a stand up and greet one another time in the worship service. <\/strong>Those who want to debate this issue are longer-term members in the church. They are split almost evenly on their preference. But, among first time guests, the response is an overwhelming 90 percent negative. The stand-and-greet time is for half your members and almost none of your guests.<\/li>\n
  2. Unfriendly church members. <\/strong>This response was anticipated. But the surprise was the number of respondents who included non-genuine friendliness in their answers. In other words, the guests perceived some of the church members were faking it.<\/li>\n
  3. Unsafe and unclean children\u2019s area.<\/strong> This response generated the greatest emotional reactions. If your church does not give a high priority to children, don\u2019t expect young families to attend. Since I posted this information five years ago, the safety issue has come to the forefront.<\/li>\n
  4. No place to get information. <\/strong>If your church does not have a clear and obvious place to get information, you probably have lowered the chances of a return visit by half. There should also be someone to greet and assist guests at that information center as well.<\/li>\n
  5. Bad church website. <\/strong> Almost all of the church guests went to the church\u2019s website before they attended a worship service. Even if they attended the service after visiting a bad website, they attended with a prejudicial perspective. The two indispensable items guests want on a church\u2019s website are street address and times of service. It\u2019s just that basic.<\/li>\n
  6. Poor signage. <\/strong>If you have been attending a church for a few weeks, you forget all about the signage. You don\u2019t need it anymore. But guests do. And they are frustrated when it\u2019s not there. By the way, if you have prohibitive signage (\u201cDo not bring food or drinks in the sanctuary!\u201d), your church is perceived to be unfriendly.<\/li>\n
  7. Insider church language. <\/strong> Most of the respondents were not referring to theological language as much as language that only the members know. My favorite example was: \u201cThe WMU will meet in the CLC in the room where the GAs usually meet.\u201d<\/li>\n
  8. Boring or bad service.<\/strong> My surprise was not the presence of this item. The surprise was that it was not ranked higher.<\/li>\n
  9. Members telling guests that they were in their seat or pew. <\/strong> Yes, this obviously still takes place in some churches. Since I did this survey five years ago, I have more stories about it. The stories are not apocryphal.<\/li>\n
  10. Dirty facilities. <\/strong> Some of the comments: \u201cDidn\u2019t look like it had been cleaned in a week.\u201d \u201cNo trash cans anywhere.\u201d Restrooms were worse than a bad truck stop.\u201d \u201cPews had more stains than a Tide commercial.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These ten issues persist in too many churches today. Do we really want guests to visit and return? Countless churches are saying \u201cno\u201d with these ten problems.<\/p>\n

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

    I bet I will!<\/p>\n

    If you would like to learn more about the 2020 micro consultations, join me on Monday, October 21st at 12:00 pm Eastern for a webinar, Grow Church Attendance 10% in 2020.<\/em> Register for the webinar here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We want people to visit our churches. We want them to return so they can have multiple opportunities to hear the gospel and connect with believers. But many do not return. Why? In a social media poll, I heard from over 1,000 persons sharing their experiences of being \u201cone and done.\u201d They visited a church one time but did not return. Five years ago, here were their top reasons. Not much has changed in their responses today.","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695181,"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":[1,183,182,179,175,180,185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-695174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-communications","category-facilities","category-first-impressions","category-grow","category-outreach-and-evangelism","category-worship"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTop Ten Ways Churches Drive Away First-Time Guests (Re-visited)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a social media poll, over 1,000 first time guests shared their experiences of being \u201cone and done.\u201d They visited a church one time but did not return.\" \/>\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\/top-ten-ways-churches-drive-away-first-time-guests-re-visited\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Top Ten Ways Churches Drive Away First-Time Guests (Re-visited)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a social media poll, over 1,000 first time guests shared their experiences of being \u201cone and done.\u201d They visited a church one time but did not return.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/top-ten-ways-churches-drive-away-first-time-guests-re-visited\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-10-14T07:00:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-07T21:50:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/10.14.19_Featured_Image.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"801\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Thom S. 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