Is Your Church Providing Warm & Friendly Encounters?

November 04, 2021•2 min read

Every church has a desire to reach new people. Every church wants to be friendly. Most churches believe they are friendly. Many churches are friendly, but a great deal of those are friendly with their own people. Or those friendly churches provide a nice initial greeting, but there is nothing beyond the initial friendly reception.

In MissionInsite’s MinistryInsite Report, one of the trends I am noticing in mission fields of varying contexts across the United States is the desire and preference of seekers looking for warm and friendly encounters when it comes to a desired interaction with religious communities. Did you hear that, church? Warm and friendly encounters! This preference is coming in at the very top of the preference list in report after report in working with churches across the country. People in your neighborhoods are looking for a place where they are genuinely welcomed and accepted without judgement. People are seeking places to build community. The church should and can be the place for people to find warm and friendly encounters!

How would a first-time guest experience your church? Would they experience a warm and friendly encounter? What feels warm and friendly to those of us that have been around the church for a while who know the people, what to expect, where to go, etc. is much different than those who are experiencing the church for the first time.

Here are just a few tips to get you started as you consider first-time guests experiences:

How easily accessible is the church? For onsite experiences, consider ease in finding worship times, exterior signage, guest parking, exterior hospitality, interior hospitality, pre-service atmosphere, guest-friendliness in worship (i.e., greetings, announcements), relevance and context of the message and music, post-worship hospitality, next steps and connection, and follow up post worship.
For online experiences, how seeker friendly is your website? Other social media? Is it up to date? How easy is it to find and access a worship experience? Is the worship experience experiential and relational? Is the worship experience designed for an online experience or video of the onsite experience? Does the online attender have the same opportunities to engage such as prayer requests, greetings, interaction with others, opportunity to provide contact information, being invited to service opportunities, next steps for discipleship, questions answered, opportunity to give, connections and relationships with others, and feeling seen and loved by others?

As we enter into November, the Advent season is close behind. And Advent is the season in which churches have the opportunity to receive more guests than any other time of the year other than possibly Easter. Are you ready to provide the best possible guest experience? Prepare now to provide warm and friendly encounters for your Advent guest experiences!

Kay Kotan

Kay’s purpose is to Equip and Empower Leaders of Faith Communities How to Engage in More Effective Ministry. Kay Kotan is the founder of You Unlimited (coaching, consulting and training company) and The Greatest Expedition – a collaboration of more than twenty thought leaders providing resources and insights for a congregational journey to develop new MAPS (ministry action plans) to reach new people in your community. Kay also launched Multipliers’ Movement – a gathering of kingdom multipliers for sharing, equipping, and encouraging. She is a CoachU and Advanced CoachU Graduate, an accredited coach (PCC: Professional Certified Coach) with the ICF, International Coaching Federation, a Certified Path 1 Coach, and once served on the faculty at Coaching4Clergy. As a passionate lay person, she has a banking background and has been a business owner for more than 25 years. Kotan has served as a church developer for conferences and worked with churches, pastors, conferences, and judicatory leaders across the country for more than a decade. She is most proud to be the wife of Bob for over 30 years and the mother of their adult son, Cameron. Kay is the author of multiple books, workbooks, and resources including Gear Up: Nine Essential Processes for the Optimized Church, Cry From the Pew, Full Schedules, Barren Souls, Being the Church in the Post Pandemic World, and Journey Preparation: Surveying Your Church’s Landscape, as well as the co-author of the books titled: IMPACT!: Reclaiming the Call of Lay Ministry, Small Church Check-Up, Insights on Productivity, Renovate or Die – Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission, Ministry 3.0 and Get Their Name , Ten Prescriptions for a Healthy Church, Necessary Nine – Nine Things Effective Pastors Do Differently, Launching Leaders: Taking Leadership Development to New Heights, Strategy Matters: Your Roadmap to Planning a Strategic Ministry Planning Retreat, Voices of Christmas: A Daily Devotional for Advent and Expanding the Expedition Reach Through Marketplace Multipliers. Mission Possible for the Small Church. Inside Out: Everting Ministry Models for the Postmodern Church, and more. Kotan and her co-author Bradford published their third version of the best-seller, Mission Possible: Simple Structure for Missional Effectiveness. Mrs. Kotan spends her time investing in pastors, laity leaders, congregations, and judicatory leaders through equipping, coaching, and creating resources to help them discover and live into their fullest missional potential of effectiveness and fruitfulness to reach people for Jesus Christ. Through her enthusiasm, truth-telling, and passion, she challenges those who encounter her in both their thinking and their doing.

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