5 simple ways to make your church stickier

8/2/2019 5 Simple Ways to Make Your Church Stickier

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5 Simple Ways to Make Your Church Stickier

by Geoff Surratt

Geoff Surratt offers a practical guide to attract, connect, and retain new attendees in your church.

For the first time in our lives, Sherry and I have the freedom to choose whatchurch we attend. When we lived at home, our parents chose for us, and after we

got married, we always attended the church I (and sometimes she) worked at.But now we are free to visit any church we want, so over the past couple of

months, we have visited nine different churches. In most cases, we have gone as

anonymous visitors, and it has been an eye-opening experience. We have beensurprised how difficult it is to fit in and connect at a new church. (If you know we

attended your church recently, Im obviously talking about one of the othereight.) So this week, I thought Id share some tips on how to attract, connect,

and retain new attendees: Five Simple Ways to Make Your Church Stickier.

None of these ideas are new or revolutionary, but I bet you think your church is aLOT better at each one than you really are. Trust me on this; they're not.

Lets dive in with Simple Way One:

1. Make your church friendlier

Im sure you assume your church gets a pass on this one; your church is one of

the friendliest churches on the planet. When you walk in, everyone says hi, you

have a built in greeting time in your service when all the new people feelwelcomed, and after church, people hang around forever laughing and

connecting. Youve got the friendly thing down.

Let me give you an outsiders perspective on the friendliness of your church.When I arrive, one or two assigned people with big nametags smile and say hi.

(At some churches, the assigned greeters are either engaged in conversation withsomeone else, grunt hello, or just frown and hand me a bulletin.) Once I navigate

past people in the lobby talking to people they already know, I am placed in an

isolation bubble called the auditorium.

I sit with people who dont acknowledge my presence in any way until the forced

greeting time. Turn and greet your neighbor before you sit down. At most,

someone might crack a half smile, give their name, and shake my hand.Normally, I get a grimaced look, a quick handshake, and a short, Hi. I dont

realize it at the time, but that is the last time anyone will make any contact withme at your church. After service, I again have to navigate the lobby where people

who already know each other have exclusive parties with other people whoalready know each other. Sometimes, I stand in the lobby looking bewildered and

feeling as out of place as a bikini in a Denver snowstorm, but no one sees me.
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Finally, I find my way back to the car feeling more alone than I did when Iarrived. And in case you think it's because Im an introvert, my extroverted wife

feels the same. Feeling alone and disconnected is the one experience weve had atalmost every church weve attended.

So how do you make your church friendlier? Here are a couple of ideas (most ofthese I stole from others):

Teach on hospitality

Take a weekend (or a month) and teach your congregation how to be hospitable

at church, in the workplace, and at home. Hospitality has always been a hallmarkof Christianity, so we need to teach on it.

Create a gorilla greeter team

Get as many people as possible to be gorilla greeters. Their job is to make surethey talk only to people they dont know for the first ten minutes after they arriveand for the first ten minutes after the service is over. They dont need lanyards or

nametags (in fact, that would defeat the purpose). Their job is to find people whoseem disconnected and figure out how to connect them.

Adopt a neighborhood

Divide your auditorium into sections and get leaders to adopt a section as theirneighborhood. They commit to attend the same service each week, sit in their

neighborhood, and watch for new people who sit in the section. They become thesmall group leader of that section.

Give the greeting time a purpose or kill it

Find a way to make the greeting time in your service purposeful. Why are you

doing this? How can you make it more effective? Is it accomplishing the purposeyou designed it for?

How has your church worked on friendliness? What has worked and not worked?

2. Navigating the MazeMake your church easier to navigate

One way to solve the personal debt crisis in America is to make stores as difficult

to navigate as many churches. Just figuring how to park is often an irritating earlymorning brainteaser. At a church we recently attended, the main entrance to the

parking lot was blocked by orange cones. There was no sign, no parking


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attendant, just orange cones screaming, No room in the inn. Because we weredetermined to attend, we found a secondary entrance and parked in the lot with

the blocked entrance. We often see signs at large churches that say Lot full withno indication of where we might be allowed to park. At one church, we kept

following signs and lot full signs until we were eventually dumped back out on the

main street. Again, we eventually found ample parking on site, but we had to bedetermined. I have seen Do Not Enter signs on auditorium doors with no

explanation or alternative. Can you imagine a sign on the entrance to Target"Store full, do not enter"?

Once we park, it is often difficult to figure out where we should go. Which building

is the auditorium? Where are the childrens rooms? Should I bring a pee cup, ordoes this church have onsite restrooms? These are the questions that many

churches do not provide obvious answers to. On more than one occasion, I havestood in the lobby and waited to see where the majority of the people seemed to

moving toward to find the auditorium. Imagine standing with the fam at the front

gate of Disney World with no indication how to enter the Magic Kingdom. Thatshow new attendees feel when they arrive at your church.

Once inside church, the challenges continue. Can I bring my soda (or coffee if you

are one of THOSE people) into the auditorium? Do I find my own seat (like amovie), or will someone find a seat for me (like a play)? When do I stand, sit,

hand over my wallet? Will I be forced to sing a solo? Approximately how long willthis service last? Am I supposed to wash down the stale bread with a big swig

from the cup of wine? These are the kinds of questions that normally I have to

figure out on my own. Printed program guides are helpful, but I'm not sure if I

should really sit and read while everyone else is standing and singing.

The challenge is what the Heath brothers in Made to Stickcall The Curse of

Knowledge. All of the regular attendees know how to navigate the churchexperience, and theyve forgotten what its like not to know. So how do you make

your church easier to navigate? Here are a couple of ideas:

Get fresh eyes

As often as possible, ask new attendees what obstacles they faced when they first

attended. Get someone who doesnt attend to try to navigate a weekend and giveyou feedback. Hire one of those Secret shopper services and see what they say.

You cant know what it's like because you have the curse of knowledge; you need

an outside opinion.

Retrain your host team


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Make sure your host team is thinking constantly about the new attendee. Whatmessage does this sign send? If we have to close an entrance, how can we best

explain the alternatives? Are we always scanning for that bewildered look, and arewe proactive about helping? What can we do each weekend to make the

experience for the first time attendee easier to navigate?

Start Here

A very simple but powerful idea Ive seen is a Start Here sign for new attendees.Most churches have welcome centers, connect tables, get acquainted tables, but a

very prominent place that clearly instructs new attendees to Start Here would beawesome. (Even more awesome would be a cookie crumb trail from the parking

lot to the Start Here center.) The center needs to always be manned with friendlyvolunteers who can help navigate the experience. A simple one-page guide would

be great. Not every small group and upcoming event, but a Disney type map and

explanation of everything you need to know to expertly navigate the weekendexperience. And a clearly defined Next Step. But well get more into that

tomorrow.

The bottom line is we should do everything we can to make our church at least aseasy to navigate as the local Target. How has your church tackled this challenge?

3. Connection

Here is something that Ive realized in my recent church shopping experience:most of us who are visiting your church arent coming because your pastor is a

stunning communicator, were not coming because your worship leader looks likeKeith Urban and leads like Matt Redman, were not even here because Disneytakes cues from your childrens ministry. Most of us are here because we want

relationships. We want to know and be known. We are walking through a lonely,difficult time in life, and we want to go where everyone knows your name. And

churches (not yours of course) can make that really hard.

After visiting several churches and not really cracking the code on how to connect(other than attending the pancake breakfast), my wife decided she was going to

solve the riddle. After service on a recent weekend, she waited in line at the tabledesignated Connect to ask how we could get into a small group. When she

reached the front of the line, the volunteer explained that we were at the wrong

table and walked her over to the correct line. When her turn finally came, sheasked again how we might join a small group. The very sweet volunteer was very

well versed in the process:

Our small groups dont start until the middle of next month, so if you come backin two or three weeks, you can fill out an interest form. The form will go to the


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Small Groups Coordinator, who will give it to several group leaders based on yourinterests. Those group leaders will then contact you, and you will then be invited

to attend their small group.

This was a well thought out system, which was explained by well-trained

volunteers who were warm, friendly, and helpful. The challenge is that we leftknowing that we were at least a month from actually connecting with someone. Inthe meantime, if something comes up in our lives where we really need a friend to

lean into, we can always drop by the pancake breakfast.

Churches should be more like car lots. I could never walk away from a car lotwondering how to buy a car or be told to come back in a few days or have to give

my phone number so someone can call later and talk about car ownership. Imnot suggesting churches should be pushy or over-bearing, but we should adopt

the motto of car salesmen, How can I put you in this car today?" If the main

reason people are showing up at church is to find relationships, there has to be away to help them connect today. Not next month, not at the pancake breakfast on

Saturday, but today.

How can you create an obvious and easy opportunity for people who want to meetpeople every weekend at your church? If its a reception with the pastor, then

make sure you have friendly connectors there as well. If its a box lunch in thebasement, make sure it isnt awkward for people who dont know where the

basement is, when it starts, or what they are supposed to do when they first get

there. And for the love of all that is good, dont let the members clump up in littlecircles laughing and talking to one another at your connection opportunity.

Newcomers dont need yet another chance to feel left out.

This isnt about consumer Christianity or church growth; this is about peoplegoing through life alone desperate for a friend. This is the central theme of

discipleship, that we love one another. People want to connect, you want peopleto connect; lets put significant time and energy into making this happen.

4. Better Preaching

Make your preaching more applicable and practical

Every church I have visited recently (especially yours) has had a very capable

preacher who has given a fairly clear, coherent presentation of the Gospel. At the

same time, I have felt a little lost on occasion (except at your church) as to wherethe pastor was going with their sermon. As a new (or old) attendee at your

church, there are three questions I need answered in every sermon:

What do you need me to know?


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Sermons are packed with all kinds of information. Background information on theBible passage, personal stories, famous quotes, obscure statistics, amusing

anecdotes, paradoxical historical references, multiple Bible verses from multiplebooks of the Bible. Out of all this information that you are sharing in 30-60

minutes, which part do I need to know? As every college student has asked at

some point, what will I need for the test? While Im sure everything you say inyour sermon is essential and life changing, I cant possibly absorb or remember it

all. Not even close. So please, please, please tell me what part do I NEED toknow? And make that part memorable.

How has this essential knowledge impacted your life?

The inside information you gave on the life of a 1st century rabbi was fascinating.The quote from Bonhoffer was absolutely riveting. The story about the five year

old teaching her grandfather the true meaning of faith was totally adorable. But

what I really want to know is how does this play out in your life? Do you havedoubts? Are you generous? How do you find Gods will? Who are you sharing your

faith with? What is your small group like? If you dont have personal stories ofhow the main point of your sermon works (or doesnt work) in your life, then lets

just skip the sermon and get home in time for the pre-game show.

What exactly do you want me to do as a result of hearing this message?

I need a specific action step. I need something I can do now, today, before I go tobed tonight. I cant remember five steps, and by tomorrow morning, all Ill

remember about your sermon is the joke you told about the priest, the rabbi, and

the elephant. And I need the action step in a specific, binary format; if I will do X,then Y will begin to happen in my life. Im not asking for a part the Red Sea

miracle, but I need to know that if I take action on the essential information, I willsee progress similar to what you have shared from your own life. And be realistic

about how big of a step I can take today and how much progress I will actuallysee. I have to believe you if I am really going to take a step.

If I knew that most Sundays at your church, a pastor would share essential

information grounded in his own experience that applied directly to action steps Ican take to improve my life, I think I would be inclined to attend as often as

possible. (Obviously, true life change only comes from biblically based messagesfocused on the cross. My point is that these sermons need to be delivered in a

format that the average attendee can connect to.)

5. The Volunteer Maze

My wife has been involved in working with children since she started leading thechildrens choir at her church at the age of 15. She taught public school for many


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years, worked as an administrator at several public and private schools, served onmultiple school boards, led childrens ministry at a local level, and was the

Childrens Ministry Pastor at Seacoast, where she was responsible for over 1000children on multiple campuses. So she thought it would be fairly simple to

volunteer to work in the nursery at our new church. Not so much. She had to be

fingerprinted, have a background check, attend an orientation, meet one-on-onewith a supervisor, shadow a leader, and attend a training meeting. It took her

several weeks to finally be placed in a nursery with two bored teenagers and ahalf dozen babies. While safety and training are very important in children's

ministry, giving birth to her own baby was less complicated than this process.

While this is an extreme (though not exaggerated) example, it points to achallenge I see in many churches. How difficult is it to volunteer at your church?

Most leaders would say it is very easy. There is always an opportunity to sign upto hand out bulletins, watch babies, or park cars. But what if there are higher

capacity people in your church who might be able and willing to contribute at a

senior level? It is very likely that there are men and women in your auditorium onSunday who would be willing to share their extensive experience for free if there

were an easy way to connect. While they may not be ideally suited to serve coffeeor change diapers, they bring years of invaluable expertise. The church that made

my wife jump through every standard hoop to baby-sit missed the opportunity to

tap into 30 years of experience. What free expertise and experience are youmissing by channeling everyone through the lowest common denominator

opportunities?

How can you simplify your on boarding process for new volunteers? How could

your church create an obvious and easy on-ramp for high capacity leaders whowould like to volunteer in your church? Is there a tool that would help you quicklyidentify and connect with these leaders? If you can figure this one out, the payoff

in Kingdom effectiveness will be exponential.

Geoff Surratt, having served Saddleback Church as Pastor of Church Planting and Seacoast Church asExecutive Pastor, now works with churches on strategy, structure and vision as a free agent churchencourager and catalyst. He has over twenty-nine years of ministry experience in the local church and is theauthor of several books including The Multisite Church Revolution and 10 Stupid Things that Keep Churchesfrom Growing.

5 simple ways to make your church stickier

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