Visitors to our churches aren't often looking for Jesus, but "value", and may likely be visiting because they are struggling with an important, life-impacting issue, not because they want to worship, according to Christian researcher and prognosticator, George Barna. Churches that are effective at building relationships understand that their guests don't want to be overwhelmed but, like guests to other venues, prefer to acquire information about the church and ministry at a pace that they set, not something that is contrived by the church.
Many church leaders consider that that the majority of the their first-time guests are "unchurched". This is likely a mistake. This word, "unchurched" has always bothered me and I wish we would just knock it off. For one thing, "churched" isn't a verb nor an adjective and adding the word "un" before the word "churched" creates a great opportunity to make a false assumption and also presupposed that the actual objective of our ministry would be to get people to be "churched" rather than following Jesus (but I digress).
It matters little if the church is small or large, building relationships start the first few seconds after a guest arrives. People that are assigned or naturally welcome both regular attenders and first time guests should be friendly and understand that visitors value anonymity. Visitors are also looking primarily for how well they are greeted and made welcome and only secondarily, are looking for the opportunities to get involved in culturally relevant and personally high-value activities.
Having visitors wear name tags or stand up and identify themselves is going to work exactly the opposite of what both the visitors and the church are hoping to accomplish. If your church is doing that, knock it off as well. Actually, aggressively contacting or visiting first-time visitors works against the church as well.
While studies have indicated that a greeting or meeting with the the pastor is important, having someone take the time to offer a genuine opportunity to connect and ultimately to build a relationship will often turn first-time visitors into repeat attenders.
No one church can be every one's "ideal" so trying to get it "just right" is usually not as important as many think. According to surveys by Barna and others, most people are quite flexible on issues of style including the type of music, how long the service lasts, the way people are dressed and the general appearance of the church. Creating an environment where regular attenders and members are appraised and reminded of the importance of building relationships and valuing authenticity in the ministries and activities creates great value in the eyes of the guests. Churches that are good at creating multiple opportunities for people to connect will create positive impressions with guests who, even if they don't come back, may share their positive experience with others.
Ultimately, churches should want to show clearly that their weekly worship service makes a difference and that attending the church again, or on a regular basis, would be a good use of some one's time. We often say that the "church" is not the building but the people. That is true and it is also true that building relationships is also the way we ultimately build the church.
