Reach & Retain Strategies (Part 2)
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In this episode of The Unstuck Church Podcast, Sean and I dive into part two of our conversation on reach and retain strategies, focusing on how churches can leverage their weekend services as effective “front doors” for connecting with new people.
From common misses like poor signage and untrained volunteers to practical solutions that create excellent guest experiences, Sean and I unpack what’s working (and what isn’t) in churches today. They share insights on creating clear guest services presence, developing intentional follow-up processes, and ensuring weekend experiences connect with both churched and unchurched people.
Listen in to learn how your church can create more effective entry points through your weekend services and establish systems that help new people take their next steps toward Christ.
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Transcript
Sean:
Before we start this week’s episode, I want to thank our podcast sponsor the Church Lawyers. The Church Lawyers’ Client Membership program was created for organizations just like yours. Their team of legal professionals are personally called to empower and protect churches, ministries, and their leaders to fulfill their mission by providing biblically informed and ministry focused legal solutions. Whether governance, employment, litigation, or other matters, let the Church Lawyers walk alongside you as you navigate legal issues facing your ministry. Sign up for the Church Lawyers Client Member Program today at thechurchlawyers.com. That’s the T-H-E church lawyers dot com.
Well, welcome back to the Unstuck Church podcast. I’m Sean here with my teammate, Amy Anderson. Amy, today we’re talking about strategies that are helping churches reach and retain more people. And with Easter coming up this year, April 20th, we wanted to spend some time going back to the basics around what it really takes and hopefully give some practical ideas for churches to see more fruit this year.
Amy:
Yeah, that’s right, Sean. Last week we talked about keeping your mission field front and center as you plan your reach strategies. So today we’re talking about how to best leverage your big front door.
Sean:
Yeah. Over the last few years, we’ve really seen how influential churches are using digital strategies as a new front door to the church, but digital might be more like the new front gate, or I think Nona Jones referred to them as the front porch. A space moving you towards the door, but you’re still not walking through it yet. And we still believe the weekend service is the biggest front door for most churches. Can you talk about why?
Amy:
Yeah, and I’ll try to keep it short, but a lot of passion around this one. But the weekend service, I think it continues to be the main place where people who are seeking answers about God and faith, this is where they still go. And this is where we often ask people to invite people to come to this weekend experience. And here’s why it works so well, Sean. I think when you acknowledge that the weekend service is the primary front door to reaching people for Jesus, you do what the Apostle Paul wrote about in first Corinthians 14; You’ll expect unbelievers are in the room. And if you expect unbelievers or those currently not connected to faith or your church, then you actually design the experience to connect with them. And then in doing that, you’re giving them this opportunity to experience worship evangelism, right? Experiencing God through the songs, the lyrics, the body worshiping together. And you’ll give them the opportunity to be in a crowd, to sit under a gifted teacher and consider the claims of Christ and the gospel.
I mean, where else does that happen in our busy, hurried, stressful lives? Where else do we get the opportunity to quiet our soul, let the Lord the creator of all things talk to us and guide us. And that always makes me think about Jesus ministry. He had a small group of believers, but where did he primarily reach people? It was in the crowds. Repeatedly, we read in the New Testament that the crowd gathered around him, the crowd gathered heard his teaching considered the truth, and that many believe thousands believed. And so I really think our weekend services are that modern day version of the crowd.
Sean:
Yeah. So essentially we are consistently seeing that churches who view their weekend as the big front door are reaching more new people. I wonder if you could share just some stories or examples of churches that do this really well.
Amy:
Yeah. Well, I don’t get to experience the weekend services at the churches I serve, although I do watch some of them online. But here I can tell when I look at their vital signs. I can get a clue as to just how effective their weekend services are. So shout out to Center Point in Orem, Utah growing by 35% right now. They are in a turn away situation at some service times. They are leveraging their weekend experience as their front door. Cedar Crest Church in Acworth, Georgia, 39% growth year over year. They’re completely outta space. They’re doing something special with their weekend services. Athens Church, Athens, Georgia, when I did do secret shoppers, still one of my favorite secret shopper experiences, and they’ve been growing and just launched their first multi-site so successfully.
So I could go on and on. Each of these churches, I know they view their weekend service as their primary reach strategy. That is their strategy to reach people for Jesus. And they put new people at ease, and they make it feel like a normal place. And they ensure they use language that’s normal. They give new people cues so that they can understand what’s happening in the service. They have fantastic first impression teams and kids ministry. And then the teachers, they teach like Jesus. They tell stories to connect with their listeners through their stories. They also communicate, I’m normal. We are normal. And they teach God’s word in a compelling and relevant way so that every listener knows what to do as a result of what they’ve heard.
Sean:
That’s good. So, since Easter is coming up, let’s talk a little bit about big weekends in general and how churches can maximize them as front-door opportunities.
Amy:
Yeah. I think I would start by saying, you need to avoid the obligation mindset when you plan these services, right? So for example, it’s Christmas. Well, everyone expects the candlelight service or at Easter we have to do a scene from our passion play that’s been running the past two weeks. In other words, you know, don’t be fettered to things that you’ve done historically. Instead, I want you to have an opportunity mindset because we’re trying to reach these people, right. How could we serve them at Christmas? What do we need to be thinking about when we put our Christmas service together with our mission field in mind? This Easter, your regulars, they believe, or at least I hope they do, that church is something they don’t miss on the holidays. But I think what they do hope you will do, not for them, but for their brother, for that friend, they’re bringing that adult child that is home for the holiday and is coming, they’re inviting them to this big weekend. So think about the opportunity you have there. People don’t try church very often. And so when they commit to the one hour at your church on those big weekends, design it for them.
Sean:
That’s good.
Amy:
Don’t design out of obligation to the past. Second, there’s probably some obvious misses that you can avoid on these big weekends. So the first one is focusing too much on things people connected to the church already would understand or care about. So this is a miss. Recapping the year your church has had on Christmas. Now, sometimes when those are really well done, they can intrigue the heart of someone who’s not connected to your faith or your church, but most, sorry, they don’t. So that would be taking this one hour where we have an opportunity and filling it up with five to eight minutes of looking back at the life of your church, that would be a miss. Because even though you’re the people connected to your church love it, those new people will disconnect. Or how about this one interviewing a missionary that you support. So don’t send me hate mail, but these people aren’t very connected to that.
Sean:
That’s right.
Amy:
Miss number two is when you don’t consider the tone of the holiday or the big weekend, you don’t consider how new people, the new people you’re trying to reach when you plan that message. So for instance, at Christmas, people want nostalgia. Don’t miss that. Right?
Sean:
All right. That is one of my biggest pet peeves, Amy in entire ministry world, is that Christmas is easy for us because people want the same thing every year.
Amy:
They do.
Sean:
And then we get bored and try to change it. That’s a pet peeve. Sorry, I’m pulling this wrong.
Amy:
We can go on. How about when we sing all those Christmas songs that we really do wanna sing on Christmas Eve, but we sing it really weird ’cause we’re bored with the normal setup.
Sean:
We changed the melody line and singing a different way than the way we’ve been singing it for a couple of hundred years.
Amy:
Yes. Let’s just do a podcast on that, Sean. We could really get going.
Sean:
Only you and I would listen to that one.
Amy:
Let’s do it anyways. All right. On this thing of tone on Mother’s Day, right. That’s often a big weekend and people, you know, more people come to church. We have to think about who’s gonna be in that room and consider we not only need to celebrate moms on that day. We also have to think through the people who have lost children.
Sean:
Exactly.
Amy:
Who this is a grief filled holiday. I was talking to one of our teammates and she said that she attended a Mother’s Day service with her husband’s family. And this church, they had kind of a Bteam speaker teach that Sunday, which is a miss, I think, when you know you’re gonna have a lot of new people, put up your best. And he taught, this is the tone part; it’s Mother’s Day, and he taught from verses and Ecclesiastes about how everything is ultimately meaningless, and used the New Testament verses about how life is a vapor. She said the whole thing was just kind of depressing on a day that’s meant to celebrate moms and, you know, the influence that they have in their kids’ life. And I just wanna add, this wasn’t a small church. This was a large multi-site church. So these misses happened in all sizes of church. I had a Mother’s Day experience too, I’ve shared before. And again, it was, it was probably D team speaker, but it wasn’t connecting at all. And here we had friends and family who really don’t go to church very often. And it was just a miss.
Sean:
So, and that’s when you, as an attender of that church, feel those things so deeply when you have somebody who’s an outsider, but you’re close to come with you. And then you experience that miss gosh, you really feel that. That reminds me of another miss that comes to mind, Amy not having a welcoming environment for guests. It’s funny the number of times that I’ve been to a church and I ask the church about their strengths, and they’ll say something like, you know, we’re a welcoming church, that’s one of our strengths. And then I attend their service and it’s anything but welcoming. Right? So here’s some specific areas where churches get that wrong.
One, just having poor signage. I think this is a fairly easy thing to do, but poor signage communicates that you’re obviously not expecting new people because finding the auditorium a kid’s check-in area, even the restrooms can be nearly impossible. And that’s really frustrating. I hate when I’m somewhere and have to go to someone I don’t know and say, where’s your restroom at? I just wanna sign. If I have to stop and ask somebody for direction, your signage isn’t good, that’s a good way to kind of test out whether it’s effective or not. So, and the other thing I’d say, I think a lot of churches don’t assess their signage when the building is full. They assess it when it’s empty and they look around and say, do we have signs? But then when you get people in, it changes the dynamic of what you can see. So that’s one part of that. Having a lack of clear guest parking is another piece of this. You know, some churches that I’ve been to have multiple entrances to the building, multiple entrances to the parking lot, and it’s possible that a new guest drives into the parking lot, parks at a door that they just see randomly. But it’s actually the entrance that’s farthest away from where they need to be farthest from your kids check-in area or your guest services or the auditorium.
Amy:
Sean, I had that once I did a secret shopper. This is a church. All of our listeners would know. It’s a well-known church. But I just did the normal drill when I was secret shopping them. And so by the time I got to the church, there were no, no one was in the parking lot anymore, getting any direct, giving any directions. So I just did what I thought a new person would do, and I walked right into this huge auditorium from parking lot right into the room, and felt so exposed. So again, it’s not just small, it’s not just big, it’s all churches can make these pieces.
Sean:
Absolutely. So, you know, prioritizing for new guests, those spaces that are closest to the entrance, that would be the best for them to go in through. Just so you’re, I mean, you’re communicating care for them actually and expecting them. And then, and then the other thing I’d say is just there’s no clear guest service area. And this is kind of about signage and location as well, but do you know, do you have a clearly marked area where new guests can ask questions? And is it centrally located? And you may need more than one of those.
So that, and then I, in addition, just not training those volunteers well on how to engage guests. I think you’ve experienced this too, but it always amazes me how on the weekend staff and volunteers kind of cluster because they know each other and they get into conversation, but they’re not really expecting guests or to engage guests. And, now, you know, new guests show up and ideally they’ve been invited by somebody that’s meeting up with them. But, for those people who just take a leap and come to your church for the very first time on those big weekends, you need people who are trained to spot ’em, identify ’em, and then engage with them, put ’em at ease. You know, here’s where the restrooms are, here’s the coffee, here’s where your kids check in, here’s where the service is gonna be. Help ’em, make ’em comfortable and kind of guide their way through your church on those big weekends.
Amy:
Yeah. That is so good. That whole guest experience too is so critical. We’ve seen in the data of correlating if people come back and how they taken that experience. I have a couple more that now that I’m thinking about it. I would say a big miss, something that’s avoidable is on these bigger weekends, making that weekend something significantly different than what you usually do. Right? Because when we make it so different, people who loved it won’t experience that when they come back next week. Or the people that didn’t like it at all, well, they really didn’t, you didn’t even get good look at your church. So we always encourage churches on Christmas, on Easter, even, like, on things like Mother’s Day or a weekend where you know, you’re gonna have more guests do your normal service. But just give it some pluses. These are the times to tell a great story, to do something creative with the arts, to have a video of some sort that engages in a different way than just talking. So pluses are good, but not complete overhauls.
And, and lastly I think we miss this a lot, is we don’t offer a compelling reason for new people to come back. So this such, if they have a great experience, that alone won’t bring them back. You actually need to give them some direction, some next steps. It’s a best practice, you know, after one of these big weekends to have a message series planned next that addresses a real need in those people’s lives. So whether that be something on parenting or something about finding purpose, we wanna give them a compelling series to return to and some clear next steps as the service ends. So those are some of avoidable things. If you can just get ahead in your planning and, and check those boxes to make sure that you’re, you don’t have to make the mistakes that other churches have made.
Sean:
Yeah. That’s good. Alright. Let’s shift gears and just talk about what’s working specifically. What are the strategies that you’re seeing churches successfully use to kind of create this excellent guest experience?
Amy:
Yeah. A few things that stand out from our work with churches. One is just having this clear, consistent guest services presence. I think it works better to have volunteers and kind of matching shirts because it kind of gives you a view like, oh, these are the people who can help me. Think sometimes we rely way too much on name badges for me, those are virtually invisible. If you wanna have ’em also have the matching shirts or something that indicates I’m a team member that you can come to if you have any questions. And then also you stated this, but just your, the placement of your guest services areas or people can go ask questions. That just needs to be strategic. It needs to be in the right flow. So assess that, that’s something that is so solvable. And if you’ve got a large gathering space or multiple entrances, like you said, Sean, best practice is putting more than one in, you know, so people have, they’re right in the flow. Several places in the building.
And then of course well-trained teams who understand their role, guest services. Yes, you probably recruit great people who have some warmth, personal warmth to them and have some good EQ. But this is a team that needs to be trained. You know, I’ve heard people say things at some of the churches I’ve gone to, like, it’s our goal to, you know, get face to face with a guest within, you know, 60 seconds of them coming on campus. Or they have parking standards where part of the parking team’s job is to ensure that they’re walking with families who have young children all the way into the building to help them find the kids areas. So whatever your standards are that defines this as a great guest experience, make sure the teams are trained and trained well. Maybe another area I’d go into is just an intentional follow-up process. What I mean is just to have, again, clear next steps for guests. From the message, there should be a clear next step, something that they can try and apply. There are things you can do, like, come on back. Do you remember the church in South Carolina? I think they called it Try Five or something like that.
Sean:
Yeah, Life Point. Yeah.
Amy:
Yeah. They were saying, give us come five weekends so you can get a real feel of our church. And challenge them to come back that way. And if the experience was impactful, they just might need that specific nudge to come back. And with that, when we talk about guest spaces, guest services, excuse me, think through, if you’re still doing printed material, think through a well designed packet or information that can address their questions. So many guest services areas are just cluttered spaces with cards and pamphlets for everything. Don’t do that because regulars should know where to go and find the information at their church. Design that guest experience desk for the specific questions they have about kids. What’s here for my kids? But they don’t need to know how to get into a group. And lastly, if they do choose to become known, you know, if they give you an email address or a phone number, just be sure to have a great follow up process. Make sure you have a personal connection with them within the next 24, 48 hours. And I don’t know what you find, Sean. I find that texting is really kind of the preferred method of communication at this point.
Sean:
Yeah. A hundred percent. So, interesting texting story. I just had to take my car into the dealership to get something fixed.
Amy:
I’m sorry.
Sean:
Which I hate doing. It’s not cheap. And the dealership after I dropped the car, off texted me with some information about the repair, proposal for pricing, different things like that, and I was able to just text back and forth with the dealership as I was going throughout my day and doing other work. And it wasn’t very invasive, really easy to communicate with them. It was a great experience. And yeah, I wish I had that with more churches. Just text me and follow up. I may have a question for you, but I absolutely. Texting is just less invasive. More accessible, and easier to respond to. So I would encourage churches to lean into that. Alright. So, Amy, what about the actual Sunday experience itself? Let’s talk about that. What should churches focus on there?
Amy:
Yeah. The key areas that we’re seeing making the biggest difference, in the guest service area. Just to continue there, you hit it, but I just wanna double down on it. Clear directional signage from the parking lot to the worship space. And like you said, not when the building’s empty, but are those, is that signage up high? Is it visible? Another thing that I would say makes a big difference is getting visibility to the kids’ spaces in that gathering space. Too many times I see kids’ spaces hidden away, tucked away downstairs, and the lobby’s all brown, like, don’t do that. Spill the kids stuff into the lobby, let guests know that we love kids. And here’s where they’re spending their time. Another area that makes a big difference is just those warm natural interactions with guests, meaning not being overly pushy. And that gets back to the training with people. I’d also add, and this is probably “Duh” to a lot of listeners, but language in the service, you gotta use language that new people understand and will be put at ease by. I’m still surprised how often I still hear narthex a lot of words like on fire. Like those just are not words that non-church people use. So scrub those words. Use normal language. And as I’ve hammered on before, make sure you welcome new people at the beginning of the service. Not 30 minutes into it. The beginning is where they have their questions, where they need to be put at ease the most. And then of course, you need teaching that is delivered and written for both churched and unchurched people.
Sean:
Yeah. So, Amy, that just brings to mind, I think a really great exercise for church leaders is actually to go attend another church. A church that’s completely different than yours that you’ve never been to take a Sunday morning. It could just be one service, but go attend somewhere else and experience what it’s like to walk into a church where no one knows you. You know nothing about the process in the church. It will open your eyes to your church in a whole new way. So just a really easy next step next Sunday, the Sunday after, whenever it is, just go attend another church. And I think you’ll learn a lot from that.
Amy:
It’s so easy for us to habituate to our church. And so I actually was gonna recommend that, too, because when you’re really new, when you really don’t know the drill, you see and sense so much more than if you try to secret shop your own church. And it’s so good to be reminded how not knowing the drill changes it, I even say sometimes go to a different type of church because you know that different denominations do things a little bit differently along the way. So.
Sean:
Absolutely. Well, Amy, I started to kind of step on some of the next steps. I know that you wanted to talk about, so sorry about that. But what are some of the first steps that churches should consider if they wanna improve this guest experience?
Amy:
Yeah. You know, I think I’ll just give one. I think you need clear standards for your guest services team. If you don’t have these written down, then we’re just relying on oral tradition and we wanna move to written tradition with this. Some of the ones that I’ve seen, I hear my husband say this as a lead pastor, no name tag to name tag conversations at go time. In other words, when we’re getting ready to go, we’re talking to people who don’t have name tags on. They’ll say things like, don’t tell people where to go walk them there. That’s that relational side of it.
We, in fact, we went to one of our locations, not the sending location at our church, but to one of our campuses. And we drove up to the campus and of course my husband did what he always did. Now remind you, I’m in Minnesota and it’s freezing out, but he drove to the furthest spot away from the front door in the parking lot. And you know what, he does it every time. And so part of your guest services team, they should, you should be reminding your volunteers and your staff that you need to be parking furthest from the church so that the spaces that are open are right up in the front of the church. And if you don’t have this in place, a lot of churches do, but that pre-service huddle where you huddle up all of your guest services team, this is where you re-envision them all the time and you’re trying to remind them, you know, that what this weekend is about and what they need to be looking for, what they need to keep their eyes on. So I think just having those standards and talking about them regularly could be the game changer for most of that guest experience on those weekends, big weekends included.
Sean:
I love that, Amy. And with what you just summarized there, let me say one other thing, especially to our lead pastors. I know you’re not trying to brag on Jason. I’ll would brag on Jason. I think he’s awesome. Your husband Jason, the lead pastor, for everybody who’s listening, who doesn’t know who Jason is. But one of the things that Jason’s doing is he’s modeling that. He’s leading it, but he’s also modeling, right? For the people on his team and lead pastors. I think you need to do this. Don’t be hidden away on Sunday morning. I know you’ve got a lot to prepare for on Sunday morning, but if you’re out, you’re engaged, you are talking to people, you’re leading the way in a great guest experience that’s gonna speak volumes.
To the people on your team and, you know, Jason’s habit of parking in the farthest spot from the church. That stuff gets noticed. I actually work for another, I work for at a church with a lead pastor, who I’ll say his name because he deserves to be bragged on Dave Ferguson at Community Christian. And Dave did the same thing, and I noticed it. Dave parked in the farthest spot away from the building and walked in and served the church that day. And people see those things. So lead pastor be out in front, model it. People will catch that and understand that’s part of the DNA and the win of your church. That’s good, Amy. Alright. Let’s wrap up today’s conversation. Any final thoughts from you?
Amy:
Yeah, I think the key is remembering that reaching new people, it is not just about programs. It’s about creating an experience that connects with those outside the church and it communicates genuine care. So I know that everyone in ministry feels Sunday’s always coming and that we plan and execute this live event every single week. So much of the church’s time, money, energy goes into the weekend. So I would challenge leaders listening today if we’re not using, if we’re not viewing it as a front door for people outside of faith, I really don’t think we’re stewarding kingdom resources for the great commission. So I hope this just reminds all of us, even though it just feels like another weekend for us. Hopefully it’s somebody’s first weekend and that begins a relationship or a step towards Christ through them and these little things that we’re talking about as we get better at all these little things, it makes a big difference in how effective our church is at reaching those outside the faith.
Sean:
That’s a great reminder, Amy. Listeners, if you’d like to learn more about the proven strategies to some of what we’ve talked through today to reach new people and get them engaged in the life of your church, you can join us for a free webinar that’s coming up on Thursday, March 13th. That’s at 1:00 PM Eastern. Where we’re gonna share some stories about what’s working in some churches right now and who are; they’re really seeing outstanding results. Amy and I are gonna host a conversation with a couple of special guests: Sean Walker, who’s the lead pastor at the Bayou Church in Louisiana, and Shelly Dameron, who’s the executive director of ministries at Orchard Church in the Denver area. We’re gonna get some fresh perspective on how to maximize the weekend’s potential to reach new people and then to retain new people with some next steps that actually work, actually move people forward in their faith and spiritual formation. So as always, it’s gonna be a very practical hour. We’re gonna share some tips on removing those barriers that keep new people from connecting with your church. You can register for that webinar at theunstuckgroup.com/webinar. Space is gonna be limited for that webinar, so don’t wait to sign up for that.
Okay, well next week we’re back with part three of this series and looking forward to that conversation with you, Amy. Listeners, until we’re back with you, we hope you have a great week.
