How Prepared Is Your Church For Guests? – Episode 368

Weekend Quality Check (Part 1)

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We’re hearing it from churches across the country: More and more people are showing up on the weekend, and it’s really encouraging.

When you have that kind of momentum, it’s easy to start coasting. It’s easy to stop noticing what needs attention, which is why now is a really good time for a quality check. Weekend quality is about more than creative excellence, though; it’s about how well you leverage that time to engage both insiders and outsiders.

So, in this series, we are going to share some practical ways you can up the quality of your weekend planning, preparation and execution—to steward the momentum if you have it or to spark it if you don’t.

PREPARING FOR GUESTS

In the first episode of our new “Weekend Quality Check” series, Sean and I talk about common issues we see with the way churches prepare (or don’t prepare) for guests and share some solutions. We also interview Pastor Mark Johnson from The Journey in Delaware, a church we’ve served for years that sets a high bar in how they prepare for first-time guests.

• Designing an experience that compels guests to return
• The tension around making both insiders and outsiders feel welcome
• How to assess your pre-visit experience, facilities and guest services

Photo credit: Vince Fleming via Unsplash

This episode is brought to you by Horizons Stewardship:

Did you know many capable households contribute more to their favorite charity than their local church? This trend is putting a significant financial strain on churches everywhere.

That’s why Horizons and The Unstuck Group have joined forces to create “The Financial Sustainability Crisis,” a guide designed to help you tackle these ongoing financial challenges.

In this invaluable resource, you’ll discover practical strategies to:

• Effectively budget and manage your financial resources
• Connect your giving to your discipleship journey
• Identify ways to ensure your ministry plan is fully funded

Don’t let financial challenges hold you back from realizing your God-inspired vision. Download “The Financial Sustainability Crisis” today at horizons.net/fundministry.

Leader Conversation Guide

Want to take this conversation back to a staff or senior leadership team meeting? 

Our Show Notes subscribers get a PDF download that recaps the episode content and includes a discussion guide you can print out and use at an upcoming meeting.

Opt-in here and get access to the full Leader Conversation Guide archive.

More Episodes in This Series

• Better Sermon Series Planning – Episode 369
• Teaching That Transforms – Episode 370
• Evaluating Effectiveness – Episode 371
• Evaluating Your Online Service Experience – Episode 372

Share Your Thoughts and Questions on Social Media

We use #unstuckchurch on X (formerly Twitter), and we start a real-time conversation each Wednesday morning when the episode drops. You can follow The Unstuck Group @unstuckgroup. If Facebook is where you spend your time, I’m there, too.

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Transcript

Sean:

Well, welcome to the Unstuck Church podcast. I’m Sean, and I’m here with Amy Anderson today. Amy, it is good to be back recording podcasts again, isn’t it?

Amy:

It is, and it’s good actually, to be back on this topic of the weekend experience, I think, Sean, it’s been a while since we’ve talked about the weekend, and I don’t know if you remember this, but when we started planning this series on the weekend last summer, I just remember Tony wanting you and me to take the lead on this series because both of us were over the weekend experience at our respective churches. And I don’t know, little did we know we’d be doing it without him, but how amazing is it that we had planned for it?

Sean:

Yeah, it really is. It’s hard for me to believe that we’re doing this without our friend and leader Tony Morgan. But we also know that he would never have wanted this to stop with him. And so, Amy, first of all, you’re a little under the weather today, so thanks for working still.

Amy:

Can you tell?

Sean:

We can, but the content’s still gonna be the same. I wonder if you would just share a bit more about why we decided to use this series and talk about the weekend service specifically.

Amy:

Sure. Well, you know, Sean, I believe that this weekend experience is still the biggest front door for people experiencing faith and exploring church. So people who aren’t already connected to the church, I know they can find their way to Jesus in other ways, but I still see the church as that primary door people are walking through when they wanna explore faith. And I also believe that churches, we often just get one shot at it. It’s a one and done. If they don’t have a great experience, I don’t think people are gonna give us their time again. We talk all the time about time being the bigger commodity these days. So people are always weighing, you know, is this worth my time? And so as churches, we have to get it right and we have to make it a meaningful experience, that’s both relevant and applicable enough that they wanna come back a second time. So in this series, we’re gonna do some, we call ’em quality checks that’ll help you guys assess, our listeners, assess if your weekend is actually running on all cylinders, and that you’re ready for both your regulars and people outside the church and faith.

Sean:

And we’re really, are, we’re hearing it from churches all across the country right now. More and more people are showing up on the weekend. And that’s so encouraging. But what we’ve seen is that when you have that kind of momentum in your church, that sometimes it’s easy to start coasting, and it’s easy to stop noticing what needs attention. And that makes now a really good time for this quality check.

Amy:

Yeah. And, you know, if you’re clear on your mission, why your church exists, your weekend service has a purpose, then weekend quality is more about more than just a creative experience. It’s about how well you’re leveraging that time to engage both insiders and outsiders. So in this series, we’re gonna share some practical ways that you can take it up a notch in your planning, your preparation, and your execution of your weekend experience.

Sean:

Yeah. This is gonna be a really, really fun series. But before we dive into the content, I just wanna remind everybody about our show notes and our leader conversation guide. And especially if you’re brand new to the podcast, you don’t wanna miss the free resources that we create and our team puts together to support each week’s episode. So if you’d like to get access to that, just go to theunstuckgroup.com/podcast and hit subscribe. So we’re kicking off the first episode here by talking about checking the quality of how you prepare for guests specifically. And Amy, I know that you have some passion around this.

Amy:

Of course I do. You know, it sounds cliche, but, but that phrase, the church is the hope of the world. I still believe that that is so true. And Sean, I am so glad that my church was ready for me and my family 25 years ago. I can’t remember the details of what they did, but I know at the end of that experience, that one hour on a random Sunday back in 1998, we decided to try church again. And both me and my husband thought, we have to come back next weekend. And we did. And I don’t think we missed a weekend for three years. It was our gas station. It was our place where we were refueled. And I’ll tell you, not only did it change the trajectory of our lives, but my three kids, their lives were all changed because of that.

And so, churches who plan for and prepare well for guests, that’s their win. They wanna design an experience that compels people like me 25 years ago to come back a second time. But here’s the tension I see, Sean, is that most of us get very habituated to our environments, and we really can’t see anymore what new people see and experiences. So churches want new guests, but if they’re not intentionally thinking through each element from the parking lot to the auditorium and back to the parking lot, they likely have some blind spots. In fact, my daughter recently invited, she made a new friend somewhere, she’s got some littles now, so a 2-year-old and a six month old. And she met someone new and she actually asked this friend to join her at her and her husband’s church. And this gal said, yes.

And by the way, if you ever wanna inspect the guest experience at your church, just invite a non-church friend to join you. It’s amazing what you now notice.

Sean:

That’s right.

Amy:

And that’s what happened for my daughter when she had a guest with her. She was actually pretty disappointed with how her church missed the opportunity to engage her friend through that weekend experience. She just saw things differently. And unfortunately, her friend has never come back to church with her. They’re still friends, but they’re not going to church. And I think the believers in that church, like my daughter, actually thought everything was great, but now that my daughter invited someone and went through that experience in a different way, she’s actually not excited to be inviting people to her church.

Sean:

You know, I think almost every pastor feels this tension around making both insiders and outsiders feel comfortable and welcome at their church. And I think admittedly, our insiders often get the most attention from us. I mean, obviously, we’re closer to them than the people who are outside the church that we don’t know yet. So over time, it just becomes easy to be more aware of them because those people are connected to our church and, and others obviously aren’t. I’ve had this experience as I’ve secret shopped at churches or just attended a church that I hadn’t been to before for the first time. And you walk in, you know, sometimes no one seems to notice you’re there. Or you may get a passing hello from someone, but you just feel uninvited and unnoticed sometimes. And I often, you know, after these experiences, I use the analogy of inviting someone over to your house and you just don’t greet ’em. They walk in your door. You don’t say hi. You don’t show ’em where the restroom is. You don’t offer ’em a drink. And how uninvited would you feel if that happened, or one time my secret shop at a church, and I left there and the thought that came to mind was, I feel like I walked into someone’s Thanksgiving dinner.

Amy:

I remember that. Yes.

Sean:

Unannounced. I sat down at the table for the meal, no one said hi. No one passed me any food. And I just sat there and ate. And it was just an odd experience. And I think it’s a common blind spot in churches, really, of all sizes that they think they’re prepared for guests, but they’ve actually let this experience drop in quality. So, Amy, let’s get on the solution side. We’re here to encourage churches to do this quality check. And as it relates to preparing for guests specifically, what are some of the things that we would encourage them to be looking for?

Amy:

Yeah. And I think Sean, we’re actually including this tool that we’ve created for churches, that they can grab through the show notes. So I’m gonna kind of walk through that. But I think for this first episode, I’d like to focus really just on what I call the first half of a guest experience, making it from the parking lot to the auditorium. And that includes what their pre-visit experience was like, as well as that journey from the parking lot to the auditorium. And we’ll just cover the other aspects of that experience in future episodes. But let me start with what I call the pre-visit experience, because I think most people have formed some sort of opinion about our churches before they’ve ever stepped onto our property. So maybe they’ve driven past your church, or they’ve seen you on social media, or like my daughter’s friend, if they were invited or maybe just interested in your church, they’ve likely gone to your website to see what the church is like before they just show up.

And so, when considering that pre-visit experience, what you’re really asking is, do these pre-visit experiences actually draw people to attend our church? So here’s some of the questions you can ask yourself, you know, related to the exterior of your property or your facility. You know, is that building a draw? Does the property have some uniqueness or is it just brown and boring? I was just at a church two weeks ago in Missouri. And the church I was going to help was right next to another church. And man, that other church, brown brick boring seventies would never go there. And then the church I was serving vibrant, you know, modern, had unique design elements to it, so I mean, if I were standing in front of both those churches, I know which door I would go through.

But also things like signage, you know, is it professional? Is it clear? Is it readable? I think sometimes we miss that opportunity, that drive by opportunity to catch people’s attention. Because, you know, in the marketing world, we often talk about, you know, people need seven exposures before they actually even notice you. So what kind of exposure is your building bringing? One of the churches I’m working with, they have some challenges, I think I actually mentioned on the podcast a few months ago. But there’s a cemetery attached to their property. So they’re seriously thinking, what external changes do we need to make? So that, that pre-visit is more of a draw than what it looks like from the outside. And then from a pre-visit for your website and social media, you know, is your website clean? Is it appealing? Is it easy to navigate?

Is it voiced to the new person? You know, I’m a big proponent that websites need to be voiced to the new person, not the regulars. ’cause the regulars can find what they need, but, you know, can guests find what to expect? Or is it a lot of churchy language? You know, does your copy on the website make sense to people outside the faith? And, and here’s a good one, are the service times and the church location, you know, are they prominently displayed? Sean, it amazes me how many times that you have shared church’s webpage with us through our Slack channel ’cause you’re like, they don’t even have an address on their site.

Sean:

That’s right. Yeah. It’s pretty remarkable. I mean, I go to the website of nearly every church that reaches out to us at the Unstuck Group. So we’re talking hundreds of websites over the course of the year, and the number that don’t have their address, a phone number, sometimes their service times listed anywhere. I’ll look through their website, I can’t find it.

Amy:

Yep

Sean:

It’s pretty remarkable. And those are just the basics. And again, it just speaks to how we’re thinking about insiders more, because of course, insiders already know where we are.

Amy:

Absolutely. So put on the hat of someone outside the faith and inspect those. The next area that I would challenge you to look at is your actual building, your actual facility. And the wind here is that your facility should facilitate a smooth and appealing experience. And I think when you assess your own building, it requires a little more discipline, because as I said before, most people habituate to their environments. In other words, the more you’re exposed to your surroundings, the less you actually notice the details. So here are just some questions that we give to churches. Number one, is our main entrance easy to identify? And does that entrance have appeal and a sense of arrival. You would be surprised, listeners, how many churches I go to secret Shop and I really can’t tell where the front entrance is. I just have to start watching where people are entering. How about this one? Does our signage help people easily find their way onto the campus? Including like, where to find a parking spot, where to drop family off, where to enter the building? Sean, you might remember this secret shop where I think our colleague Paul Alexander did it, but there was a huge tree in front of the signage that told new people where to park and where to enter. Do you remember that?

Sean:

I do remember that. And I think literally that week they sent someone out with a chainsaw and chopped that thing down. They did. But it was one of those things that they just, you know, the insiders never noticed. They weren’t looking for their sign. They already knew where their church was. And it needed, they needed an extra set of eyes. They needed someone else to look at that differently. To call it out for ’em.

Amy:

They habituated.

Sean:

That’s right.

Amy:

All right. Next area, once you’re actually inside the building, here’s some questions you could ask yourself is like, is there a good flow through the building? Are there bottlenecks or congestion? Nothing is more intimidating than when you have a congested area you’re walking into. Is it not only clean, but is it clutter free? Again, you would be surprised how much clutter some churches have and they don’t even see it. They don’t even see it. They walk right past it. Or here’s a really important one. Are there enough restrooms? And are they modern and clean? I get super judgy on churches when I feel like I’m stepping back into time or back into an elementary school when I get into their bathrooms. And lastly, I could go on and on with this. You know that, Sean, but again, how’s the internal signage? Can people, new people easily find their way around without having to ask someone?

You mentioned before, like, if we were to visit you at your home, get greeted, show where things are. I think also some new people just really wanna be self-directed, and that’s where the signage comes in. So can they find their way around without having to ask someone? Do they help people find the essential areas like the kids area bathrooms, where we’re going in for the worship experience? So those are just some questions. There’s more in the tool that will give you, but putting on those fresh eyes hopefully will help you identify maybe some of these areas that you become blind to. And Sean, I’m actually gonna have you talk about the next two areas. ’cause I know you have some passion around guest services and around kids ministry.

Sean:

Yeah. Let me do that. But before we move on from what you just said, Amy, I just wanna speak to, I hate going into a new church for the first time and having to chase someone down and ask where the restroom is. It’s embarrassing. I just don’t wanna do that. I want to be able to find a sign and have it clearly marked, oh, there’s the restroom, and find my own way. So it’s even those little things that are just so important that create a good experience. And I don’t walk in feeling awkward or asking questions that feel awkward.

Amy:

It is so intimidating to walk into new environments. And so you . . .

Sean:

It really is.

Amy:

Just really have to do whatever you can to put people at ease in that first time experience.

Sean:

That’s right. Yeah. So let’s talk about guest services also. I mean, this one is really important because you do not get a second chance to make a first impression. And the win here is that the guest experience puts new people at ease by answering their questions and just creating a positive impression of the church. So some of the areas that you can expect are, do we greet new people in a comfortable, joyful way without overwhelming them? Amy, you know this, I am not a hugger.

Amy:

No, you are not.

Sean:

I do not love hugs. And when I walk in for the first time and am embraced in a hug, that’s immediately off putting to me. And hopefully that doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. I just don’t enjoy hugs. But when someone greets me with a smile, a hello opens the door for me and just lets me know that they’re really glad that I’m there.

Amy:

They’re normal.

Sean:

It’s really meaningful. That’s right. That’s right. You know, ask, is our team diverse or are they similar in age, gender, race, et cetera? It’s great to see people represented in some of those roles and guest services that also represent the mission field of people that you’re trying to reach. Do we have an obvious place people can go to get questions answered? Is that clearly marked? If I do have one of those questions that I need to lean into, do I know where to go without having to ask for directions? If we have a weekend program, does our weekend program or other key visuals address the top questions a first time attendee would have? A lot of times the programs have announcements for things that insiders would wanna be a part of, but does it answer some of those key questions for me? If I’m there and I’m new, and if I come in and I’m a new person that has kids with them, does our team notice that and then help them figure out where to go? Amy, when I walk into a church for the first time, me and my wife walk in with five kids, and I’ll tell you, we need some help. Right?

Amy:

You do need help.

Sean:

That’s right. And so someone who’s willing to step in and say, Hey, I’d love to direct you. Here’s where to go. Here’s what you should know. And is able to do that without me having to proactively chase that down. That is just a huge, positive first impression for me and my family.

Amy:

I think the other thing you have to be careful with, with guest services is, especially like, it came to me when you were talking about is there an obvious place you can go to get questions answered? A lot of people don’t go and ask questions. So often those spaces aren’t busy. And what can happen is team members can just get really internally focused within themselves.

Sean:

True.

Amy:

And start talking. And it just feels like now I have to approach a huddle that I’m breaking into this group. Or even greeters that are just talking amongst themselves. So this team also has to have good EQ and stay externally focused in what they’re doing. And I think the data on this says that a person will make up their mind in the first five to 10 minutes as to if they would return. And so, there is a nuance to all this. It’s easy to overdo guest services, just as easy it is to underdo it. So a good area to inspect.

Sean:

Amy, I’m so glad you said that. One of the practices that we had at the church that I was at was many of us would stand in the atrium space and we just wanted to be social and be present in between services and before services. But all of us knew that anytime we saw a new person who looked like we could step in and engage or help, we would stand together and have conversation, but our conversation would end wherever we were at, we would just cut it off, stop the conversation and go engage the new person. And it was for that reason, we didn’t want to be in those little huddles where outsiders or new people felt like they weren’t welcomed or greeted or engaged. So that leads us to the last area that we want to talk through in the first episode here.

And that’s kids ministry. And of course I said, I’m a dad of five kids, so I have some expertise in this area. And I think that it’s true that if you can win the kids, really you can win the family as a whole. So when new families walk into your church for the first time, you know, ask yourself some of these questions. Do they immediately know that you value their kids? What are the things that are communicating? We value kids in this church and they’re important to us. Do our children’s spaces communicate a wow experience for kids? I can’t tell you how many times our kids have encouraged us to go to church when maybe we were on the edge of not going that day because they had such a great experience in the environment they were in with the people that they knew and that’s really important.

Here’s what’s important to me. Does the environment appear safe and secure? I mean, I want my kid returned to me after service in the same condition that they were when I dropped them off. So is it a safe place? Are they secure? Do you have those protocols and safety measures in place? I would like to know that ahead of time. Are there great volunteers in place that connect with both parents and kids? Do they show genuine care and connection and relationship with my kids, that’s important to me. And I think the win here is that we have kids spaces that are easy to find and that communicate this expectation of safety, security, and fun for my kids that I brought to church that day.

Amy:

And the last series we did on the Next Generation, I remember Christie Penner Warner saying how important it is going back to the pre-visit experience, how important it is for your kids’ area to have a great pre-visit spot on your webpage because parents are going in there to check that out as well. To actually answer these questions well, I think it’s important that you do your best to shed what you’ve become accustomed to. If you want to do your own secret shopper, your own weekend quality check, you’ve got to shed what you become accustomed to because you probably parked in the same parking space for years. You actually know where the restrooms are. You don’t see the clutter. Words like worship are super familiar to you. Singing in public with hundreds of people is normal to you. In other words, you know the drill. So you’ve got to be intentional as you put on this persona of being outside the church and assessing these areas. And remember, your objective is to do your very best to look through your entire weekend experience through the lens of someone who’s not familiar with faith church Christianity. You have to think through what questions would they have based on this experience, what would be confusing to them in this experience? What would cause them anxiety? And does our weekend service make sense to people who are outside the faith?

Sean:

And Amy, going back to your comments on the pre-visit experience specifically, it reminded me, Tony and Tiffany from our team had a conversation with Blue Van Dyke. Blue is with Studio C and actually Studio C had run a focus group that they were in asking non-church attendees to visit church websites and churches. And they asked them, what’s the number one thing that you were looking for when you did that? And those focus group respondents said, is this place weird? That was their question. And so we need to make sure that we’re considering both insiders and outsiders, online, in our messaging and in those physical spaces, because they’re asking questions that oftentimes aren’t running through our filter on a weekly basis.

So Amy, before we continue with our episode, I mean, you and I both know it takes a lot of time and resource to produce this podcast on a weekly basis. And it really wouldn’t happen without our podcast sponsors. And this week’s podcast sponsor is Horizon Stewardship listeners. Did you know that there are so many capable households that contribute to their favorite charity more than they contribute to their local church? This trend is really putting a significant financial strain on churches everywhere. And that’s why Horizons and The Unstuck Group have joined forces to create the Financial Sustainability Crisis guide designed to help you tackle these ongoing financial challenges. In this resource, you’re going to discover some practical strategies to effectively budget and manage your financial resources, connect your giving to your discipleship journey, and then also identify ways to ensure your ministry plan is fully funded. Don’t let those financial challenges hold you back from realizing that God inspired vision that you have for your church. You can download the Financial Sustainability Crisis guide today at horizons.net/fundministry. That’s horizons.net/fundministry.

Well, in each episode of this series, we invited a pastor that we know who leads a church that’s excelling in one of the particular areas of the weekend to share some of their insights. And in this first episode, we invited Mark Johnston from The Journey in Delaware.

Amy:

Yeah. Our listeners might be familiar with that. I’m sure I bragged on them over the years, but it was two years ago I went and did their secret shopper, and it was the best one that I have ever experienced. When I put that persona on from being outside the faith and outside the church, they got the highest scores. And since then we have continued to work with Mark. They’re working on their multisite church. And when I thought about this guest experience, they were the first church that came to mind. So here’s my interview with Mark.

Well, mark, we are in a series to encourage pastors to check the quality of weekend services and really assess if they need to raise the bar. And your church has such an incredible culture of being prepared for and expecting guests. So what are some ways you as the leader that you’ve influenced and champion that culture?

Mark:

Yeah, well, thanks Amy. It’s a privilege to be here. And I think this is such an important thing for churches to know about the culture they’re creating for new people when they’re walking the door. And I feel like my number one job is reinforcing the value of people who don’t know Jesus. I think you can only create a great culture of welcoming and hospitality when people understand how high the stakes are. And so over the years, I’ve done my best to communicate to our leaders and our teams. We can’t worship well enough. I can’t preach well enough. We can’t do anything well enough to make up for somebody not having a great experience in the parking lot when they walk through the door when they get that cup of coffee. So I really feel like my primary responsibility is to catalyze urgency around how high the stakes are when somebody checks out a church for the first time.

Amy:

So, good. And I, you know, I experienced this at your church. I’ve told the story actually on the podcast a couple of times, but you do that, you’re a catalyst for that, but your people get it because I had one of the most amazing first time guest experiences at the Journey in Delaware. Would you mind, pastor Mark just sharing any stories that come to mind that illustrate the ways that your church demonstrates its preparedness for guests on an average week?

Mark:

Yeah, I think so. I’m going to go kind of into the hyper relational space on this because I think it is a symptom of the culture that we’ve been able to create and that we work so hard on. But we have a large recovery community in our church. A lot of people who are recovering from addiction and are having experiences in that time of their life are flooding into our church. It’s just something God is doing. And we have somebody who serves on our impressions team. She is in her sixties. Everybody loves her. Everybody kind of knows her. And she, when she knows that men are coming from a recovery house, she will stand where they exit and give every one of them a bear hug. And I think that’s one of my favorite stories. And we’ll get this feedback. These like, you know, 250 pound grown muscular guys getting hugged by this little grandmother, you know, and it changes their perception of what church is, and it really is welcoming the prodigal home. It’s Luke 15. It’s what Jesus talked about. And for me, that’s just one of my favorite examples of, we worked hard to create that culture and there it is an action and maybe a very unexpected way. So yeah.

Amy:

I’m curious, did someone tell her to do that or did she just feel empowered and thought about who they were and how can we make this experience the best it can be?

Mark:

Great question. And I think that’s the key, right? If from the leadership there is culture shaping always happening, then people don’t need to be told they don’t need necessarily step-by-step instructions on here’s how you create wow hospitality. Once you get the culture in them, they can make the good grassroots kinds of decisions in the moment to go, these guys look like they need a bear hug. We didn’t program that. We didn’t systematize it. It came from the culture. And I think that’s important. Because if you try to put a system on top of an unhealthy culture, the system, the wheels will always fall off. But if you have a healthy culture, the systems just kind of tend to develop organically in a lot of ways for that.

Amy:

Yeah, I agree. Have you ever had any seasons in the life of the church where you were less newcomer focused? Like, and how did you lead through that shift to where you are now?

Mark:

Yeah. So I’m going to be kind of direct on this front, but I’ve never had a season when I was less newcomer focused. Has our church ever had a season when we were less newcomer focused? I think a hundred percent. I remember early on when we started the church and our story is we launched kind of no money, no team, no plan. And growth was very slow at first. And when our church began to grow, new people were coming in the doors every week. And some key people in our church, one person in particular, I remember saying to me like, it seems like all you care about is new people. It’s like you light up when a new person comes through the door. What about those of us who’ve been here for a long time? And I remember having to navigate that and teach into that. I mean, that is what Jesus taught, that there’s more joy in heaven over one person who comes home to the father than over 99 others who don’t need to come home. And so there have definitely been seasons in the life of our church. We’ve been less than newcomer focused, and I’ve had to teach and modify model and show people the value of throwing those front doors wide open.

Amy:

And my guess would be you have to do those in different spaces. I mean, there’s probably a smaller space with your leadership, you have to do that. But do you also leverage the weekend service to help your 99 be mindful of the one?

Mark:

A hundred percent. And I actually think the best way to do this is not to get up on a weekend ago. Now remember guys, people matter to God. It’s to preach in a way that makes it clear that you as a communicator are mindful of people in the room who don’t buy it yet, who are new who are guests who are checking this out, who are suspicious. So I’ll say things often like, Hey, if you’re not a follower of Jesus yet, you may not buy this. And I understand that I’m not here to twist your arm. Or if you’re brand new to the Bible, it has books in it, like just things that, you know, kind of communicate. That’s how you build a culture where everyone in the church understands, our pastor is aware of new people being in the room, so we should be to, and we should bring some of them. And I think that that ripple effect is where you get that strong culture.

Amy:

That’s really good. How does your church balance creating this sense of family and community while also being very welcoming and guest focused?

Mark:

Yeah, that’s a great question as well. And it is a, it is an ongoing tension. If you’re going to grow and reach a lot of new people, this is Acts six, right? When the disagreement, I love the word actually in the New Living translation, discontent arose, because people were like, Hey, our widows are not being taken care of. And the apostles are like, we’re supposed to preach the word of God and start churches and what are we going to do? And they came up with a process by which they managed the needs of people, I would say during the week. So we try to stay pretty clear that the weekend is primarily aimed at new people, but if the weekend’s going to be king, one of my friends said this recently, so I’m stealing it from, if the weekend’s going to be king through the week needs to be queen. So there’s got to be this harmonious relationship between the kinds of group life environments we’re creating during the week, making your church sticky for people who’ve been there for a while. So I just think it’s an ongoing tension and if you try to fix it, you’ll err on one side or the other. You got to live in it for sure.

Amy:

Pastor Mark, you and I were just laughing about the series Stupid Church Tricks, just, you know, our founder Tony Morgan had a, he got away with a funny sense of humor. So I’m going to ask this on his behalf. I want to hear from you, what are your biggest pet peeves as the senior leader related to preparing for new guests? In other words, are there any like, guest prep aspects of the weekend that your team focuses on always getting right. Because otherwise it just bothers you.

Mark:

Yeah, for sure. I would say, I’ve just started using this language over the past year or so, but making sure every space is people ready and you can’t compartmentalize that. So I would kind of go on a little tangent, I think at times about, you know, we’ve got our stage ready. Of course it’s clean, clear of clutter, but then backstage, there’s all kinds of clutter. And it’s like, well, nobody sees backstage. You can’t compartmentalize being people ready. So if a member of our, our J team, which are the people who serve in our church, if they walk through backstage to come out on stage, we are modeling. This is, these are the kinds of environments we create. So I definitely get hung up on that. I think a stupid church trick is to think that some spaces matter and other spaces don’t. If you’ve got the space, steward it: backstage, front of house,. I get kind of wired if the bathroom that people use backstage isn’t clean. Because everything teaches, I want it to be people ready.

Amy:

Well, thank you Pastor Mark for joining us. I really appreciate it. Anything else that maybe I didn’t ask you that you want me to ask?

Mark:

One of the things that’s really proven important to us over the years is this concept of moving people from known to unknown. And I think it plays into this guest readiness, hospitality experience, is that we’re always trying to take people from a place where they are to the place we want them to go. And that’s a process. So I always tell people, the first five minutes of a weekend gathering should feel fun. It should have one message. Isn’t this a lot more fun than you thought it would be? That’s the known. Then we want to move them deeper into worship, get into the word of God, the unknown presence of God is impacting their life. And I think that’s a great filter to use, move people from known to unknown, when it comes to guest readiness.

Sean:

Well, Amy, I love Mark’s heart and his value behind connecting new people to their church through the weekend. And after listening to your conversation again, I wonder what stood out to you as some of the takeaways?

Amy:

Yeah, as I mentioned, the Journey Church does a remarkable job of preparing for guests. So I just wanna call out a couple of things that stood out to me from the interview. First, I like that Pastor Mark said his number one job as lead pastor is reinforcing the value of being ready for people who don’t know Jesus. He said he has to catalyze urgency around how high the stakes are when someone checks out church for the first time. And how he does that with his team and his leaders. I just think for the lead pastors listening, you just have to keep drawing that line in the sand and keeping that in front of your staff and your key volunteers.

And then second, I loved that concept of moving people from the known to the unknown. I think that’s a little bit of what we’ve been talking about is how do we just meet new people, right where they are, where it’s known and it’s comfortable, so that we can lead them into the unknown, the things they don’t know about. And he said the win for the first five minutes was the reaction of new people saying, this is a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I think it relates back to, is this place weird? He would say, is this a lot more fun than I thought it would be. We used to say at our church that we wanted people to think this is normal. They are normal, and this church is normal. And even a fun place to be. I don’t know. What about you, Sean? Anything you wanna leave listeners with today?

Sean:

Yeah, I just wanna leave our listeners with a really practical idea on what to do next. And it’s this secret shop yourself. Ask yourself, how well are you actually prepared for all of those new people who might be showing up to your church? Do you, do they feel appropriately included and noticed on the weekend? And would they feel like they just walked into your home maybe uninvited like I have sometimes?

So to help you do this, we’d like to give you a tool for starting to do a quality check in your church. And in the first phase of our Unstuck Process, we actually provide training to your staff to learn to self-assess the quality of your weekend experience. This is really about internalizing this so you can do it consistently and on a weekly basis. And that’s something we encourage churches, just we wanna be doing this regularly. So when we’re on site with a church, we facilitate a group discussion around the team’s observations when it comes to the weekend experience. So we’d like to give you a digital download to preview that tool. And if you’re subscribed to the podcast show notes, you’re getting it in your weekly email already. If you’re not, you can head to theunstuckgroup.com/podcast and subscribe to get on the list.

Amy, as we wrap up, I just wanna say thank you again to everyone who tunes in on a weekly basis to these conversations. Next week, we’re gonna continue this series with a conversation on planning weekend series. So until we’re back, everybody, have a great week.