Archive - August, 2011

Welcoming Roundtable on 19 September

August 26, 2011 in Welcoming

Thanks to all who have expressed an interest in the ‘Welcoming Roundtable’. I am pleased to confirm that a time, date and location have now been confirmed. Here are the details – I’d love to see you there.

The purpose

To assist discussion amongst Christians as to how to most effectively welcome the people who God brings to our churches. You can download a short background paper I’ve written on this topic: ‘Welcoming people to church‘ (PDF).

The essentials

  • Who: Christians who are interested in discussing how to most effectively welcome the people who God brings to our churches.
  • When: 19 September from 6.30-8.30pm. We may finish a little earlier, we won’t finish any later.
  • Where: Naremburn Camerray Anglian Church.
  • Cost: your time, but not your wallet.
  • RSVP: Please let me know if you are coming via this form. It is important that I know in advance (by 12 September) who is coming, so that I can confirm the room that we will be using.

I’ll also order some pizzas if you’d like some food and conversation before we start. You can indicate if you’d like to be there at 6pm for pizza on the sign-up form.

The format

The format is still being finalised but will most likely involve:

  • Brainstorming the obstacles newcomers face in coming to, and being at church.
  • People from different churches sharing their approaches to welcoming.
  • Time to ask questions of these people as to how and why they approach welcoming as they do.
  • Exploring the challenges and opportunities of the key periods of welcoming (before the service, during the service, after the service).
  • Time for people to share what’s worked particularly well for their church, and what’s not worked at all!
  • A discussion on how to train welcoming teams, and the church as a whole to welcome newcomers.
  • Useful resources for thinking about this topic further.

We’ll close the night in prayer. I’ll aim to document the discussion in a series of follow-up posts on Communicate Jesus.

To get prepared

No preparation beforehand is required. However, if you’re interested, here are some resources to consider:

I’ve also written a number of posts recently on this topic:

  1. It’s time to stop assuming people know
  2. If you don’t know, it’s not obvious
  3. A first impressions survey of newcomers to church
  4. A visit to the philosophy seminar: a lesson for churches
  5. What questions might people have before visiting church for the first time?
  6. 8 posters to engage with people new to church
  7. Video: 10 top tips for welcoming
  8. Hillsong provides two lessons for welcoming visitors to church

Questions?

If you have any questions, please contact me via email: steve at communicatejesus.com.

I look forward to seeing you there.

A first impressions survey of newcomers to church

August 23, 2011 in Welcoming

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject of welcoming recently – as regular readers of Communicate Jesus would know! (Don’t forget about the welcoming roundtable in Sydney next month!)

One book that I’ve found particularly helpful is Fusion: Turning first-time guests into fully engaged members of your church by Nelson Searcy. There’s a lot of great advice in this book that I’ve been thinking through how to apply.

One of the suggested applications is a survey of newcomers, sent out in the days after their first visit. Searcy suggests the following questions:

  • What did you notice first?
  • What did you like best?
  • What was your overall impression?
  • How can we pray with you?
  • Name
  • Email Address

I also noticed The Village Church running a similar survey on their website.

I decided to launch this at Church by the Bridge – below is a snapshot, and you can view online here. We received our first entry last week!

There are numerous benefits to this survey. Here’s five:

  1. Show people that you care about the experience that they have.
  2. See how church is perceived through the eyes of someone who is new.
  3. Learn what your church is doing well – how the church and welcome teams can be encouraged.
  4. Discover what obstacles exist to new people feeling welcomed.
  5. Understand (over time) whether your church is welcoming or not (don’t just rely on gut feel!).

A night of prayer for East Africa

August 23, 2011 in Church Life

Learn more here.

10 obstacles to effective church communication

August 19, 2011 in Church Life

I’ve been brainstorming areas where mass communication at church (e.g. announcements at services) can fall over and be ineffective – usually resulting in people tuning out.

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I’m certainly learning a lot as I think these things through and experiment with different ideas. These are based on my observations – I’d be interested to hear yours.

Here’s 10 obstacles to effective church communication:

  1. Where all messages are communicated as if they have the same importance and urgency (channels, frequency), people won’t know what to prioritise.
  2. If the same message is communicated the same way, too many times, people tune out (“I’ve heard this before”).
  3. If people can’t quickly see why the message is relevant to them, they will tune out.
  4. If the person communicating the message is boring, long-winded or doesn’t seem to know what they are talking about, people will tune out.
  5. If it’s unclear what people should do as a result of the communication, they probably won’t do anything.
  6. If different messages are communicated at different times, people will be confused and tune out.
  7. If people can’t respond straight away (e.g. during a church announcement), it’s unlikely they’ll remember to respond when they get home. That is, if it’s not easy to respond, they probably won’t.
  8. Blanket announcements and mass emails asking people to respond/serve/give usually have very little impact (as opposed to the personal conversation/email).
  9. If the communication is about an event that is months in advance, people will tune out (in my experience, most people don’t think or plan long term as they have enough going on in the short term!).
  10. If people think they’re the only one likely to respond, they probably won’t respond (which is why Facebook shows the people I know who like the KFC Facebook page it wants me to like, and why ‘anonymous’ altar calls usually result in ‘”I can see a hand, and another…!”).

Question: What other obstacles exist to effective church communication?

Video: This is discipling

August 19, 2011 in Videos

This is Discipling from The Foursquare Church on Vimeo.

Watch online here.

A visit to the philosophy seminar – a lesson for churches

August 18, 2011 in Church Services

Last Thursday was date night, and my wife and I were looking for something to do. We stumbled across a philosophy seminar via TimeOut.

This kind of event isn’t something we would usually go to - the organisation running the seminar sounded a bit odd (read: unfamiliar), and the speaker at this particular event even odder. He was the author of ‘The significance of the Lotus Flower’ – not a work I am familiar with! However, on Thursday afternoon we were feeling brave.

We found the address and rocked up to the lobby. We were already feeling a little less brave by this stage – we were hungry, and the seminar wasn’t in a particularly public location (in a room on a floor in a multi-storey building in the city).

We didn’t know if we were in the right place – there were no signs showing us where to go, and we had to consult the building directory to find where the seminar was taking place.

We ummed and aahed about heading in.

Eventually, we decided to get in the lift, and then poke our noses in. The problem was – the room was at the end of a long-ish corridor, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of people there. From our vantage point outside the lift well, it didn’t look like it would be that easy to just ‘poke our noses in’. It looked like it was an all or nothing affair – commit, or not, but there was no going back once we’d walked in.

So, not with our stomachs winning over our curiosity, we took the easy road and went back down the lift to find some dinner.

I share this story, because we realised last Thursday that this is what church can be like for people who are unchurched.

These people may be interested in coming along (perhaps they saw an ad your church placed online, or a postcard in the letterbox), so they’re curious, but need some coaxing and convincing that it’s a safe place to be.

Then, when it’s not easy to check out church without being locked into going, when it’s not easy to spot the exit points, or if it looks like they might be the only ones there, they bail.

This is what church can be like, and I don’t blame them for bailing – we did too!

Churches can learn from this. Here’s five lessons that come to mind:

  1. have clear signage so that people know they’re in the right place, and where the should go next.
  2. have friendly, normal-looking people at the entrance points (and there may be multiple), to help people know where to go, and be a smiling face when they arrive (a smile melts many fears!).
  3. be in an accessible location (a room tucked away might be cheap, but it feels a bit cultish and inaccessible).
  4. open up all the doors so people can look in.
  5. when people tentatively approach, welcome them, and let them know it’s ok to take a look inside without committing to staying.

Have you been in a similar situation? What else could churches learn from this experience?

Related to this, I recommend reading: ‘I’m not a Christian, but I’m coming to your church this Sunday‘.

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