How Visitor Friendly is Your Worship?
Hint – Check The First 10 Minutes of Your Worship Service

Church growth experts say that most church visitors decide if they are going to come back for a second time, within the first 10 minutes of the service. That’s not fair! That is way before your pastor has had a chance to wow them with their preaching skills.

What This Means

  • Much of their decision is based on what happens before the service even begins.
  • How easy it was for them to get info on your church, worship time, and location.
  • When they arrived, was parking pretty easy?
  • When they walked in the door, how were they greeted?
  • Was the signage good—were the washrooms easy to find, and in decent shape?
  • When the service started was it visitor friendly?

Visitor Friendly = No Insider Stuff

If you want to reach out to folks that have not grown up in the church, look for things that might make them feel like an outsider or unwelcome. Especially in the first 10 minutes of the service.

  • No Announcements towards the beginning of worship – church announcements are often filled with insider information—names of people and places, terms, etc, that make visitors feel uncomfortable and like an outsider.
  • Don’t Spotlight Visitors – insiders tend to like to be recognized (especially the extroverts), but outsiders do not. Most unchurched visitors would rather be more incognito. So although it may seem like a nice thing to do, don’t point out the visitors and say, “Hey, look who’s here!” Don’t thank them for coming during announcements. However, getting a “thanks for joining us for worship card” out to them asap can be a great thing. This means getting their mail or email address somehow, though without making them feel uncomfortable.
  • Start Strong – start with a good strong song that most people know.
  • Ease Into Liturgy – most of our Lutheran liturgies and settings are very long-time church member-oriented—people that have been in the church from birth. They are filled with jargon from foreign languages and can make visitors feel unwelcome. Starting the service with “Confession” or one of our creeds would likely make a visitor uncomfortable. The “Thanksgiving for Baptism” liturgy would make an unbaptized visitor feel like an outsider.

So if your church would like to be more visitor-friendly…

  • Take a look at the first 10 minutes of the service.
  • Remove anything that is geared toward insiders.
  • Replace it with fun and inspiring music and words.

Oh, and how do you feel about people bringing coffee into church?