Effective Church Communications

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and a Biblical Perspective to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. Our tools constantly change; our task doesn’t; Effective Church Communications can help.

Will Your Visitors Become Members?

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Make it easy for people to become part of your church.
Make it easy for people to become part of your church.

An indisputable fact: Across the United States, and perhaps in other countries as well, church attendance and membership have been steadily declining over the past several years.

Researchers and scholars offer scores of societal changes as the reason: busy lifestyles,  disintegration of family, more mobile populations, growing demands on time, religion being viewed as irrelevant—and on and on. There are, no doubt, elements of truth in all these findings. But my experience leads me to believe there is another factor, one much closer to home. Just how welcoming are our churches? Do we put our best foot forward? Can we see ourselves as a visitor might? Do we display hospitality? Are we willing to embrace others and encourage them to become a part of our fellowship?

Moving to a new community and looking for a church home gave me a fresh opportunity to be a visitor. Some observations on things churches can do to attract visitors and encourage them to come back—

• advertise in the local paper; make sure times and directions are clear

• provide visitor parking convenient to the main entrance

• have adequate and attractive signage for parking, entrances, the nursery, restrooms

• train greeters in the art of offering a friendly and meaningful greeting

• provide an attractive and informative bulletin

• provide a greeter who walks visitors to the sanctuary doors and directs them to seating

• equip pews with visitor cards—and sharpened pencils

• give a general “welcome visitors” from the pulpit

• provide an opportunity for visitors to meet the pastor after the service

• offer a “Meet First Church” brochure to visitors; at least have them in pews

• provide a little memento of their visit: a pen, notepad, booklet

• absolutely send visitors a letter!

Unless yours is a very small congregation, your church may have more visitors than you realize. Sometimes visitors slip in and out with no recognition at all—no handshake, no smile, no greeting. Some have been invited by members.; others have sought you out on their own. All are seeking. We don’t know all their reasons for coming, but we can safely assume they want to feel valued, accepted, welcome. These arepeople—not numbers. Treat them as you would like to be treated. Take an interest in them. Show by your words and actions that you care about them.

Each visitor comes away with an impression. This is not a matter of being judgmental. Visitors are often deciding if this is the church for them. Is this where they will fit in, where they will find a place of service, where they will grow in their faith and have opportunity to make a difference.

There are fair, better, and best ways of extending a welcome. Would you rather be asked, “Are you visiting?” or greeted with a friendly “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Ann Smith.” Whether the person is a visitor or not, this greeting gets people acquainted.

One thing not to do: In an attempt to extend a welcome, some churches ask visitors to stand and introduce themselves. A good intention, perhaps, but it makes many visitors uncomfortable.

Even in the friendliest church, the cue for hospitality must come from leadership. Someone, the pastor or an assigned person, must lead members to be aware of new faces and to personally greet those with whom they are not acquainted. Greeter training is essential, but few things are more noticeable to a visitor than a pastor who sets a positive example. Staff and members who stay involved with one another or with family and friends—at the expense of welcoming newcomers—miss a great opportunity. It may seem quaint, but visitors (not to mention members) appreciate a personable pastor.

Those who sing in a choir or as a praise group play an important role in creating a friendly environment. It is such an attractive thing when folks singing praises to God allow their faces to show joy. And such a distraction when they don’t. Week after week some singers look positively unconvinced of the message they sing. What a missed opportunity to be a positive witness.

As important as a friendly welcome on the day of the visit is a personal written welcome arriving within the week. In this time of digital communication, a real letter makes a statement. Using a template is fine, but personalize it with the visitor’s name and adjust as necessary. Enclose a brochure about the church ministries and any other printed material that may be of interest—a small flyer about VBS, a special study, or whatever. One church sends along a neat little memo book/calendar. Very nice.

The pastor’s added handwritten note (“So good meeting you” or similar) is gold!

Next Lord’s Day try to put yourself in the mindset of a visitor and see your church through his/her eyes. You may find some things you can do differently to encourage visitors to become members—and to encourage your members to invite others. Details do matter.

 

Your people, your church greeters–your most important communication tool

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Negative visitor card
This is a copy of a very negative visitor card--this is not how we want visitors to respond. Chris Walker's site will help your church avoid comments like this.

Sometimes we work so hard on our printed and digital connections we forget about the most important one of all--our people. Chris Walker, aka, the Evangelism Coach has a great article here about people who were so upset with the rudeness of church greeters, they wrote it down on a response card. Studies show that for every complaint someone actually takes the time to write about, there are many more upset people, who don't take the time to write.

Check out the article here as well as many resources on Chris' site.  He has excellent training and resources for church hospitality and evangelism. In addition, he's a thoughtful, insightful writer--I highly recommend his material.

CLICK HERE to go to this site: http://www.evangelismcoach.org

Just how friendly is your church? great tips!

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Gayle Hilligoss Pictureed. note: We can work very hard to create communications that will link us with visitors and make ongoing connections, but if we have grumpy people and messy churches all the careful communication pieces won't mean anything. Our wonderful encourager, Gayle Hilligoss has some tips that will help any church make your actions match your message.

The church sign proudly proclaimed The End of Your Search for a Friendly Church. An hour later the visitor was certain someone had violated the truth in advertising laws.

While friendliness is not the primary element drawing people to a congregation, most won’t stay around long enough to discover the church’s other attributes unless a hospitable, welcoming environment initially puts them at ease.   If you have been ensconced as a church member for a while, you may owe it to your church to visit some other churches to sense for yourself what it is like to be a visitor again.

Most staffs and members want to be caring and friendly, but in the midst of teaching, preaching and fellowshipping, too many give way too little attention to the impressions their visitors receive.   Perhaps if we could figuratively slip into the shoes of a guest for a few Sundays we would be more sensitive to visitors and new members in our own congregations.

Consider  these observations noted after visiting scores of congregations and talking with their members and staff; see how you can use them to the advantage of your own situation.  

Churches send positive messages by:

  • choirs that smile during the songs and stay awake during the message
  • members who are friendly beyond the time designated to be friendly
  • parking near the door reserved for visitors rather than the staff
  • clean and well cared for buildings and grounds
  • walkways cleared of ice, snow, grass, mud
  • attractive, functional signs inside and out
  • members who refrain from chatting during the music or message
  • a reception area staffed with friendly people ready to give directions or help
  • words of choruses printed in the bulletin for those unfamiliar with them
  • sending the church newsletter for a few weeks after the visit
  • the pastor acknowledging the visit with a letter
  • personable music directors who look like they enjoy what they are doing
  • crisply printed bulletins with print large enough to be read easily
  • providing thoughtfully prepared New Member packets  

Things that should never happen, but often do:

  • the first communication from the church has to do with finances
  • scruffy, hand-lettered signs designate classrooms and clutter walls
  • bulletin boards contain out of date information
  • the only greeting visitors receive is an obligatory handshake during the service
  • only a few members welcome the new members following the service
  • no church directory is included in the New Member packet
  • people’s talents are ignored when they are asked to fill positions in the church  

Things that could always happen, but seldom do:

  • pretty bowls of wrapped mints are on the reception desk
  • staff members turn to give attention to the choir when it sings
  • men on the platform stand when a woman comes to the platform
  • new members receive a handwritten note from the pastor
  • beautifully landscaped grounds are planted and cared for by volunteers
  • professional or neat computer-generated signs are used
  • new members and visitors receive a call from the church office on Monday
  • churches benefit by allowing members to use their unique talents

With members and staff working together any church can become more visitor friendly. Assistants can bring about significant differences. Pastors and ministering staffs can become more sensitive to what it is like to be on the other side of the pulpit. Congregations can follow their lead.

Why? Because many people want to end their search for a friendly church.

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Ending note from Yvon:

If your church has a unique way of making guests feel welcome, please share it with us in the comments section here. Thanks so much!

How Connection Cards improved visitor and prayer request response—true church story

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An encouraging email about connection cards
True story: how connection cards helped a church connect with visitors.

None of us do the work we do in communications without great concern for how it actually impacts the people we want to reach. That's why I appreciate it so much when I hear back from any of you on what worked in your church. Following is an email from Rona Heenk, a church communicator in Washington state. Thanks so much to Rona for her encouraging words to me and all of us—what you do DOES make a difference!

She inspired me to do an ECC training video on Connection Cards, click here to go to it.

PLEASE send me any stories you have of what has worked in your church so I can pass it on to others. Email to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

Here is Rona's story (no editing, all her words):

Yvon,

I wanted to give you some feedback on something unrelated to the webinar, which I thought would be encouraging to you:

Based on the advice in your booklet on Connection Cards, I presented to the senior pastor the idea of a new Connection Card, putting it in the bulletin as an insert, and asking everyone to fill one out each week. He discussed it with the other pastors, and they agreed to the new card, but were reluctant to ask everyone to fill it out, so we continued to do what we were doing, which was to ask visitors to take one out of the chair back and fill it out and turn it in with the offering.

After a few months our response rate hadn't changed--maybe one visitor card turned in per month, and at most one or two prayer requests each week. About half the time we had zero cards turned in. I just kept praying about it, and waiting for a good opportunity to re-visit the idea.

 

Then, the week after Easter during our staff meeting, I mentioned that we had an attendance that was about 70 over our average attendance, yet NOT ONE visitor filled out a card. Our senior pastor sat up and paid attention, and asked if I had any ideas to improve that.... open door!! I "happened" to have the booklet and your latest article from Christian Computing Magazine with me, and presented the idea again, quoting your statement that basically said, "The Connection Card is the only real link we have to reach out to newcomers, and to be able to respond to questions and needs." That seemed to cement the idea that it was time to try something new, and he put into the minutes that our current way of handling the Connection Cards is NOT working, and suggested to the elders that they come to their meeting the next night prepared to discuss it.

Next thing I knew, they came to me and asked me to make it happen!

So, we began by sending out some email communication to the congregation about what we would be doing, and most of all, WHY. Last Sunday, May 2, we tried it for the first time, and guess what? No one complained, we got lots of responses, including TWO that were filled out by people who were first-time visitors. We got more prayer requests and people asking for information than we usually do, and I got three email addresses I didn't already have on file.

I even had a couple of cards come back with notes of encouragement to me, thanking me! (In the emails I had used a statement something like "Remember what it was like when you were the new person somewhere? The last thing you wanted to do was something that would draw attention to yourself, as if to say 'look at me, I'm a visitor!'" and I think that is what resonated with them.)

Anyway, I thought you'd be encouraged to hear how your communication ideas have been put into action! Feel free to quote me on anything here if you want to. I feel so strongly that we who are in the church need to do everything we can to learn to communicate EFFECTIVELY, and your material is one of the few resources I've ever seen that is up-to-date, thorough, and specifically addresses the unique needs of a church communicator.
Blessings!!

______________________

For more information about the book mentioned in this article: Connection cards: connect with visitors, grow your church, pastor your people, little cards, big results, click here.