Visiting Other Churches

Over the past few months, everyone on our staff took a Sunday and attended a church in our area (within 50 miles). We wanted to see what other people were doing well and what we could learn.  I asked them to be like a secret shopper.  In our staff meeting yesterday, we talked about our findings. Here were some highlights.

• Everyone went to the churches website to find out about service times and directions. And nearly every website had this information in a great place.
• In a few places, the main entrance or where to go once you got out of the car was not obvious or clearly marked.  Some used signage really well.
• A few churches used insider language on signs. Insider language happens when a signs say things like “North Parking,” which is really guest parking, but only the people who aren’t guests know this. We used to print signs pointing to “the ocean” and “the desert” (kids environment names), but nobody knew what that means. We changed the words on the signs to “two year olds.”
• I imagine that every church wanted to create a welcoming environment, but many of churches did not succeed. A few of our staff members weren’t greeted by anyone at all. A few of the churches really did a great job creating a friendly atmosphere. This is something that I always want us to be improving, by the way.
• Signs often aren’t hung high enough so people standing around block them.
• In one church service, there was a purposeful section teenagers who were on their cell phones the entire time. The service did not relate to them, so they didn’t pay attention.
• One staff member wore jeans to a service and was the only one there in such attire.
• A couple of the churches were video venues. One had great video quality, and one did not. If you’re going to utilize video, it probably needs to look great.
• I asked our staff to fill out cards to we could evaluate the follow up process. A couple of the churches didn’t ask for any information. A few of our people got something in the mail or something via email after filling out a card. One got a surprise visit on a Saturday morning. And several people got nothing. If you’re going to ask for information, you should probably do something with it. Incidentally, a couple of churches had really long connection cards…asking for things like occupation. One staff member joked that it was like filling out a loan application.

As a staff member or a regular church attender, what is obvious to you is probably not obvious to guests.  You may think that you have the friendliest church in the world, but until you see things through the eyes of a guest, you may not really know.  And most of us have forgotten what it’s like to be a new person at a new church.  I don’t want us to get used to things, so I was grateful for this opportunity to learn.  While there were a lot of things that we would suggest to these churches we visited, I’m proud to say that each of these churches did some things really well and encouraged us in some way.