You probably had somebody turn up at church last Sunday, and they hadn’t been in your building before. And the pastor at some point welcomed such a person from the front, acknowledging their presence. Maybe they pointed them to the coffee, or the Welcome desk. Now think How did the pastor describe them? And what
We’ve just reviewed the card we use for newcomers. We’ve tidied it up, and made the whole thing a touch more intentional. There are basically four areas.
You walk into a party and you don’t know anyone – know the feeling? That’s what your church feels like to a newcomer. You know that – but think about it again. We must force ourselves to remember that feeling , because it’s genuinely so elusive. It was drummed into me as a young pastor
Our church has big front doors, in that lots of people turn up quite unannounced. But we also have big back doors too – people leave, often without being noticed. So I want to make sure that journey is not a short one. I want to slow people down, and introduce them to church. I want to make our front doormat sticky.
Are your home groups in a rut? Needing something to shake them up? Here’s an interesting idea – stop meeting in each other’s homes. I heard recently of a church was pushing back on the idea of being pushed to the margins. They realised they were colluding with the idea of being invisible to a
It’s one of the big theories about the Web. Chris Anderson first outlined it in his book, ‘The Long Tail’, and the marketing guru Seth Godin riffs on it endlessly. And it’s so nearly right it’s important to see that it’s completely wrong. It goes like this: at one time the only way to
I recently stayed in one of those commercial, chain hotels, and it got me thinking about my experience and what was good and bad in it. So here are four positives: Helpful. The staff were on duty the whole time, and were attentive and efficient. They knew the answers to my questions, and pre-emptied several
