Consulting, Coaching & Chatter

This post comes from my Editor’s Foreward in the Nov-Dec issue of Net Results, North America’s most enduring and trusted church growth and evangelism magazine (for which I’m the managing editor). You can check out the whole issue at www.NetResults.org.

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The following account is a compilation of four or five church visits. It takes the best from each of the churches and creates what I can only call a Christmas vision.

It was Christmas Eve and we were new to town. Our family’s tradition is to attend an early Christmas Eve worship service with our children and return home for a late dinner. We’d seen a likely church a couple of miles away. Although it was further than we really liked, their sign gave us all the Christmas services information we needed. Many other churches used their sign to remind us that Jesus is the reason for the season or to wish us a Christmas filled with peace.

The “Family Friendly” service was scheduled at six o’clock, which was earlier than our usual experience, but we were excited that we would able to start our kids to bed at a reasonable hour for a change. Even though it was early, it was getting dark when we pulled into the parking lot. At each entrance we could see a “Shepherd” in full regalia with an orange safety flashlight waving us in and directing us to an open parking space near the front of the church. I noticed other cars being directed to the “back parking lot.” I later learned that as church members entered the lot they would dip their headlights in order to be directed to the membership lot – at the farthest reaches of the property so that guests could park in the “best” parking places.

As we got out of the car, we heard caroling and we noticed a strolling quartet of carolers in Victorian costume singing nearby. A young woman wearing a green elf hat was with them and as they continued to sing, she welcomed us conversationally and asked if we needed any help getting our children to the worship center. We didn’t need help, so she pointed out the open doors to the church and let us know there were light refreshments just inside the doors. We couldn’t help but notice that there were other elf hatted greeters both in the parking lot as well as at the doors.

We entered the entry hall and were well greeted and directed to the refreshment table where there were healthy snacks of apple slices, carrots, both warm apple cider, cold apple juice, and of course coffee and tea. One of the door greeters handed me a sealed envelope that was labeled For Parent’s Eyes Only. On the back was a cryptic message saying the envelope should be opened before the service ended and without child-presence. While my wife took the children to the refreshment table and then to check out the Make an Ornament station (where the kids had their digital picture taken, printed, and they pasted it in a frame they’d decorated with felt pens, glue, and bobbles), I opened the envelope. Inside was a contact card that asked for our name, address, number in the household, as well as an instruction card. The instructions said that within an hour following the service, Christmas Magi would stop by the house and drop off a Christmas gift for the family. It said the Magi would leave the gift at the front of the door and ring the doorbell. They would then make a hasty retreat so the children could find the gift on the doorsteps from the Christmas Magi. The card let us know the gift would include home-baked bread and a pot of local honey. I filled out the contact card and handed it to one of the elf hatted greeters (per the instructions) and we made our way to the worship center.

A cheery usher met us at the door and asked if we had a seating preference. Like most guests, I suppose, we preferred as far back as possible and we were escorted to a row in the back third of the church and were given a glossy, four-color program as we were seated. I noticed the front of the church was filling up, which in my experience was strange. Again, I learned later that members had opted to sit in the front of the church so guests could sit in the “premium” seats.

Before the service began, we were greeted by one of the members who introduced himself as Robert. We chatted for a couple of minutes and he asked about the family, our careers, and interests. He shared just a bit about the church and a small group that was starting in the new year that matched our interests. Then he excused himself and I noticed him having a conversation with another couple across the aisle. That made me look around and I saw a number of these conversations going on across the room as members left their seats to chat with folks that they’d just met.

As the service began, all of the children between two and twelve were invited to be a part of an impromptu Christmas Pageant if they wanted to. Shepherd costumed youth wandered the aisles and invited the children to follow them, but there was no pressure. No cajoling. Our younger children were game and followed like a flock of lambs. The service began with a round of Christmas carols and was followed by a hearty welcome from the pastor. Barely ten minutes had passed from the opening of the service, but as the pastor finished his welcome, he introduced the impromptu children’s pageant. The kids were wearing very basic costumes. Some wore oversized robes with a towel tied around their heads like scarves. Some wore robes and crowns from a local burger place. Others wore headbands with sheep ears, donkey ears, piggy noses, and so on. The Christmas story was read from the Bible from the Message version (with Luke’s and Matthew’s versions strung together), and the children acted it out while being shepherded by youth. There were a couple of digital photographers snapping photos and the program told us we would receive photos of the kids in action in the mail in a week or two (we got an 8×10 of each of our children posed in front of a manger scene that must have been in the costuming area) and a group photo of the kids in action at the front of the church.

After the Christmas Pageant, the kids rushed back to their seats while the pastor told us about their upcoming children’s worship themes. It turns out their Children Worship Too program has multiple-week series that correspond with the adult worship themes. The congregation was led through a couple more Christmas carols and then, using a clip from A Charlie Brown Christmas, Linus recited the Christmas story from Luke. This led to a very short sermon that even the children could follow. The title was Making Memories, which was really an introduction to the upcoming sermon series they called Putting Fun Into Dysfunctional Families: Making the Best of Reality that was to begin the following week (rather than the first week of the new year). They ran a faux “reality show” video clip to introduce the series and bring the sermon to an end. All total, the sermon time must have been no longer than ten minutes and the children stayed with the pastor’s words from start to finish. Then we sang a couple more carols and one of the Shepherds prayed for us to have a memory filled and Christ focused Christmas.

We’re typically the first ones out the door when we visit a church in a new town, and generally we “escape” without so much as a good-bye, but every elf-hatted greeter we met coming in was apparently in place before the closing prayer and we were bid merry Christmas, thanks for coming, and hope to see you next Sunday. In the parking lot, the strolling Victorian carolers were making their rounds and the flashlight bearing shepherds were out in force to point the way out. Again, we found out later than members had been asked to hang back so that visitors could exit the parking lot first.

That evening, as promised, within an hour of returning home the doorbell rang and our children sprang to the door, as children often do. When they opened the door, there was a wrapped gift sitting on the steps and with great delight the children spied two Magi disappearing down our driveway.

The gift box had a loaf of homemade bread, honey in a jar, and a small honey pot that had the logo and contact information for the church imprinted on it. There was also a brochure about the ministries of the church, a commercial CD with Christmas carols on it, and a Christmas card hand-signed by the pastor with a church information magnet enclosed.

A Christmas dream of fantasy sugar plums? Hardly. Every part of this vision is being acted out in churches we’ve attended, worked with, or were associated with over the years. Put it all together and you have a service that will move, touch, and inspire your guests – and I’ll go out on a limb and predict that a pretty good number of them would show up again over the following weeks.

This month’s issue is chock full of ideas to help you lead your church through the holyday season and into next year. And though every article is simply fabulous, please don’t miss the Aha! comment on page 32 with Tom Bandy. His “Christmas Clergy Depression” is one that every church member needs to read and contemplate – for the sake of the church. (subscribe at www.NetResults.org)

I was working on a worship evaluation and thought that I’d share words and recommendations about a church’s welcome. If you’re going to be open and welcome to guests, you might want to consider the following.

Hospitality begins in the parking lot. Well, it really begins when a guest goes to your website to find out where you are and what time your services are, but that’s a different post for a different time. If you have outdoor greeters, and parking lot greeters specifically, the congregation’s hospitality truly begins as a guest comes out of their vehicle. Indeed, with an effective parking lot greeting team, any lack of signage and parking issues actually become mute (during worship hours), since a guest couldn’t get lost because there would always be a greeter in sight.

I can’t stress how important greeters actually are. Some other time I’ll share the story of Dean King at Decatur First Christian Church in Georgia, but let me say that one of the reasons I became a member of that church and the Disciples of Christ denomination is because of Dean’s welcome and greeting. There are few more important jobs in a church than being a greeter, so why do we rotate greeters and use people who are, shall we say, less than gregarious? Whomever is your best welcomer should be permanently recruited and deployed as the church’s lead greeter. Frowns, scowls, or even inattentive folks need not apply. With that in mind, here are some recommendations I regularly make to churches I work with.

Recommendation 01: Raise up a team of parking lot greeters for all public services. There should be no less than two parking lot greeters, and three would increase the level of hospitality significantly. These greeters should be outfitted with walkie-talkies, safety vests, and either directional flashlights or white gloves (which looks really sharp). In addition, they should have access to large golf umbrellas for rainy day greeting.
The Parking Lot Greeters should be individually stationed at the entrance to the church’s driveway as well as in the corpus of the parking area. Guests and members alike should be pointed to appropriate parking slots. In the spirit of hospitality, service, and sacrifice, able bodied members should park in the farthest reaches (least desirable) of the parking lots to ensure guests and differently-abled participants can park nearest the worship center. Membership has responsibilities, not privileges.

Parking Lot Greeters are charged with ushering vehicles to appropriate parking, greeting members and guests alike, and providing a helping hand to those who need it. The greeters should do more than just point out open parking spots, but should be gregariously engaged with arriving participants. For those who are well trained, the name of guests will be extracted in the greeting conversation … and relayed to the Information Booth team who can then greet the guests by name when they enter the building. Of course, the Parking Lot Greeters should escort participants to the entrance when it’s raining, with the infirm, or whenever guests need assistance in any other way.

Parking Lot Greeters should remain at their posts until at least fifteen minutes into the worship service … and the greeter stationed in the main parking lot should take up a post either just outside of the worship center doors, or just inside the doors with their eye turned toward the parking lot in search of any latecomers who need to be greeted.

Recommendation 2: If  your congregation uses them, dispense with member name tags. First, they are not ecologically renewable and second, they may add to a guest’s discomfort as their paper badges set them off as an “outsider.” It is a better practice for everyone – members and guests alike to wear paper name tags (a renewable resource). To facilitate this each week, you could place at least three or more high-top tables in the patio area for greeters and name-tag artists to work. Greeters should greet every person and help them to the high tops to get their name tags. Members and guests alike should be introduced to the name tag artists who quickly write out a name tag. Everyone should have a name tag … if someone gets in without one, it should only be because they were not greeted. During inclement weather, the tables could be either moved under the overhang, inside the building, or perhaps patio screen “tents” could be erected to provide shelter.

Recommendation 3: It seems that most greeters and ushers remain active at their posts only through the first five minutes or so of the worship services. However, first time and returning guests, as well as members, may arrive late … sometimes quite late. To provide excellent hospitality services, there should be at least one greeter in the narthex at all times during the worship service. This greeter could serve as an Information Center host as well.

Recommendation 4: Train a number of gregarious folks to be Worship Hosts. These hosts are strategically located in different zones within the sanctuary. Their job is to ensure first time and returning guests are greeted, questions answered, and generally made to feel welcome without overwhelming them. They should be “at their posts” before worship no later than ten minutes before the service begins.

Much more could be said of all four of these greeting stations, but you get the gist. Greeters should greet and not get involved in distracting conversations, especially with members. Ushers should ush – they should do more than just hand out a bulletin with a smile (or a grunt). Helping folks find seats, asking congregants to slide into the middle of the row to allow for space on the aisles, and so on are all ushers’ tasks. And hosts welcome – they ensure folks don’t fall through the cracks. If you get these four recommendations implemented, it’s a good bet your guests will have at least know they were welcomed.

Imagine finishing your meal at the Great Wall Chinese Restaurant. The server brings you the bill and snuggled up against it is a very special Fortune Cookie. I say it’s special because this time it’s going to accurately predict the future. With great anticipation you break open the cookie and eat it completely before you read it – that’s the house rule for making sure the fortune comes true – and then you uncoil the paper to read,

“Very soon your church will have a worship service and that will host the most unchurched guests for the year …”

You smile with anticipation and as you get ready to pay your bill, you notice that new words begin to appear on the Fortune Cookie’s strip of good news. You unfold it one more time and watch as the rest of the fortune fades in

“… and you will likely squander the opportunity.”

That Fortune Cookie accurately predicts a truth that will be manifest itself on December 24th in churches across the US. Although most pastors are aware that the Christmas Eve service will be one of the two largest worship services of the year, they fail to realize that it will also be the one service of the year they can expect a large number of the unconnected.

In today’s secular world, if a coworker casually mentions that they’re going to attend church on any given Sunday, someone is bound to ask incredulously “Why would you go to church?” Church going is not a particularly savvy thing to do, especially if you’re not already a practicing church goer. But something almost magical and significant occurs during the season of Advent. It somehow becomes politically correct, or at least not incorrect, to drop into church on Christmas Eve. There’s still enough of a national ethos to allow for a one-time pass to church. So if that same coworker announces they’re going to a Christmas Eve service, no one in the office will so much as blink. They might even invite themselves!

But how does the church respond to the one opportunity to really reach out and touch someone who’s unconnected with Jesus and the church? We sing carols. We read scripture (typically from the Good News for Modern Man of 1611 version). The pastor might say a few words, but if s/he does, they’re often laced with sentimentality and lacks any relevance to life’s burning questions. We light a candle, sing Silent Night and go home.

Did I mention that we almost never even bother to try and use the “Pew Pads” or “Friendship Rosters”? We not only allow the unconnected leave with their needs unmet, we endorse and encourage their anonymity.

Great leaders of growing churches recognize Christmas Eve as the best opportunity to connect with the unconnected and they move heaven and earth to ensure they do. They unapologetically create a worship service that’s more meaningful to the unconnected than it is to the well-churched. They ensure there’s a hand-off, an invitation to a near-future event that’s been designed to both pique the interest and meet the needs of the unconnected (like a sermon series or a seminar on Undoing Devastating Debt or Reviving Relationships). They get the guest’s names and contact information. They follow-up with a meaningful Christmas Eve gift (within two hours of their Christmas Eve attendance) even if it is inconvenient for us Christians to do so … remember, this is not about us – it’s about those unconnected with Jesus. They do whatever it takes to capitalize on the opportunity to reach the unconnected. They take Paul’s words to the Colossians seriously: “Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the most of every opportunity” (4:5).

And so, you’ve just unwrapped your Fortune Cookie. What are you going to do about it this year?