If you’ve ever been to a large church, then you know the drill. It’s easy to go in and leave without being noticed (for the most part). For some, that’s the reason they attend large churches–they can be completely anonymous and without accountability to anyone. But for many, they would like to get plugged in, but they don’t just know where to begin.

This is something I worried about for myself, actually, as I started pastoring at Pioneer Memorial Church–would it ever get to a point where I actually became familiar with people?The church is not on the massive scale of things, but we do average about 2,700 between two services, so it would normally make familiarity with people relatively difficult. Here’s some lessons I’ve learned in the last few months about feeling connected.

1. Attend other church events. If all you do is just attend the main worship experience, you’ll probably never really feel connected. As I’ve started to attend different church events, though, it’s given me an opportunity to meet people in smaller venues. I’ve been able to learn people’s names and connect with people who I normally would never have met before.

2. Join a small group. This is the easy one of course, but requires a little more intimacy and commitment from your part. In a smaller church you can get away with feeling connected without being part of a small group, but not in a large church. If you do this, you’ll immediately begin to meet people and get connected to their extended networks as well.

3. Join a ministry team. When you join a ministry team you’ll begin working side by side with several people. This assumes that there is a process by which people can be involved in ministry in your church, but that’s another discussion. So if you’re normally pretty shy, I think that joining a ministry team is actually easier than a small group. It requires less emotional energy.

It’s taken a few months, but I’m actually getting to the place where I know quite a few people’s names and have had some decent conversations with several of them. Of course it does help that I’m one of the pastors on staff, but I think these principles still hold. If all I did was attend the weekend worship service, I would barely know anybody. So you do have to be intentional about wanting to connect and attend other events and volunteering. If you don’t, you probably shouldn’t blame the church because you don’t feel connected.

What about you? What’s it been like for you to connect in a new church?

[image by the waving cat]

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Sometimes all that’s needed is to look at an idea from the perspective of someone else, or to actually hear the perspective of the other person, to help us see that we might be a little off-base.

On this blog we’ve covered topics of assimilation and how to treat first time guests. Occasionally we get some comments from people that have been guests at churches and have been treated badly. There’s nothing like reading something like that to make me re-evaluate my priorities.

Well, my friend Jonathan Peinado, a pastor, recently sent me a poem that a first-time guest wrote and sent to him after being treated badly for wearing a hat in church. I think it provides some powerful lessons. Check it out:

Come As You Are

Church is a place where I can go,

to seek salvation for my soul.

A church should welcome everyone,

regardless of the things they’ve done.

Judge me not, by my long hair,

or the tattered clothes I wear.

I come here, seeking the truth,

which makes me no different, than you.

You don’t know my, situation,

or the things, I’ve overcome.

My life has been tumultuous,

but my Savior died for all of us.

I have come, to understand,

I will never be, a perfect man.

and any man, who claims to be,

is caught up in their vanity.

My church had communion last week,

and a man that sat across from me,

mouthed the words, “take off your hat”,

in judgment, of me he sat.

I thought of never coming back

because, of his unfair attack.

But this man has, faults of his own

therefore, should not be throwing stones.

I came to church, to give my praise,

but left there feeling quite ashamed.

Embarrassed, by the clothes I wore,

but should it matter, I implore?

Come one, come all, come as you are.

Walk, or bike, or take a car.

Judge, no one for what they wear,

just welcome them, because they’re there.

Wow. What are your thoughts?

[image by twiga269]

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I noticed a couple of things:

1. They were expecting me

2. They were inviting me to stay and be comfortable

3. They were inviting me to return

I suppose if churches were as intentional in doing even little things as Starbucks is on their landing page, perhaps many would have a different perception of churches.

Maybe. Maybe not. Thoughts?

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I recently received this question from one of our readers:

“I wanted to know if you’ve written anything on “order of worship”. I struggle with this all the time. I feel like calling for tithes and offerings never is placed in the right spot, the children’s story become a sermon for adults, etc. How many times do people stand up and for what, etc. any thoughts on this?”

I’d like to take a moment to share what we’re doing in our church, but I’d like to give an opportunity to bring it to the entire group, here, so you all can share your thoughts as well on how you order your worship service.

So let me get the ball rolling.

1. Opening Song. This is usually an uptempo song that’s used to bring everyone together. In a sense, it’s an ice-breaker that helps everyone to get focused on God and come together.

2. Welcome and announcements. During this time I get up and have everyone greet each other while music plays in the background. After a few moments I ask them to take a seat. I introduce myself and then call the people’s attention to the program and I encourage everyone to begin filling out our response card. In this post I share a little more about what I actually say during this time.

3. Continued worship set. We then sing about 3 songs. The last song in this set is what we call the “prayer” song. So at some moment in this last song, we invite people to come forward if they have a special prayer request that they want to bring to God.

4. Prayer. We then ask everyone to kneel, as far as possible, and then there’s the main prayer.

5. Sermon. I then get up and speak. During the appeal time I pull out the connection card (our response card), and challenge them to take some next step.

6. Receive tithes and offerings. After the close of my sermon I have a short prayer. We then have someone come forward to call for the tithes and offerings. He/she has a short prayer for all those that will give and for all the decisions that have been made. The ushers then come forward and receive the tithes and offerings, as well as the connection cards.

Most churches receive the tithes and offerings before the sermon somewhere, but we do it afterwards so that we can receive the completed connection cars as well as the tithes and offerings at the same time. This way everyone has something to put in the buckets as they come around.

7. Closing song. After the closing song I get up one more time and give a short final blessing. I’ll quote from Numbers 6:

And that’s it! You’ll notice that there’s a few things missing that many churches have. We don’t have a children’s story, because we have children’s church. As to when people are standing, they stand whenever we’re singing. I’ve found that this helps people to sing better and to be more excited in their singing. During the other times they’re sitting down.

At the end we have some snacks and refreshments in the lobby as people walk out.

So what about you all? If you can, please take a moment to share what you do in your worship service in your church. I’m curious and I’d love to hear about it for myself as well. What do you do and why?

[image by Daniel Pipitone]

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At my church we used to do these every week. We thought that it was a great opportunity for people to connect with each other and touch base with guests that have come. To a certain degree, this was the case. A few months ago we made the decision to just have a joint potluck just once a month. To be honest, this was mainly a financial and human resources issue. Doing a big potluck every week requires quite a few volunteers and a lot of cleanup, so we decided to do something else for the other weeks. Outside of the church doors we set up some tables with drinks, muffins, cookies, and that sort of thing.

And guess what we noticed? We noticed that people were actually interacting a lot more then they were in the potlucks. In a potluck, people typically sit with the same people, in the same areas. If they do sit with a guest, they have the ability to connect with 3-4 people, perhaps. Notice the fatal flaw here? It’s all the sitting that’s happening.

But when we began doing the snacks outside after the service, we noticed people began mingling with more people. People would move around and say hi to different people. A lot more connections were being made than before. We’ve noticed that people typically hang out for about 30 minutes or so. And then when it’s all done, we just need to pick up the tables and bring them inside. Instead of having people “in the kitchen” cleaning up and serving food, we can have them “on the floor” interacting with guests.

For us, this was all a surprise. But definitely a pleasant one at that.

If you’ve never tried it before, I suggest doing a little experiment and seeing how it works for you.

So what about you? Do you do something for guests after your church service? A potluck? Snacks? What has worked for you and what have you seen?

[image by Lopiccolo]

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I recently read a fascinating report by Bob Franquiz called  How To Think Like an Unchurched Person. You can download the pdf by clicking on that link. In the document he details his experience of what it was like being a first-time guest at a synagogue.

And the following are four pieces of information that an unchurched person will be looking for on your church website before they come:

1. Service Times. This probably sounds like a no-brainer, but many don’t have that info on their website. Someone should be able to find your service times quickly and without too much hassle. Do you have two service times? Do you start at 10:30am? Do you start at 11:30am? List the times.

2. Directions. Not only should you have the full address listed clearly, but you should also have a link where they can receive turn-by-turn direction through a google map. It’s quite easy these days to insert the Google map of your church address onto your website. For more info on how to do that click here. You should also include clear signage on the inside of your church to help them get around to where they need to go. There’s nothing worse than walking into a new place and having that lost feeling.

3. Service Length. You may list your service times on your website, but do you list how long the service actually lasts? People want to know if they’re going to be sitting there. If you don’t list the times, people may assume the service is three hours long. So share if it’s a 60, 75, or 90 minute service.

4. Dress Code. This is important. What’s the personality of your church like? Do people mostly dress in suits there? Do they mostly dress in jeans and shorts? If it is a more laid back atmosphere, but they come in a suit, they’ll feel quite out of place.

So how are you doing with those? This definitely made me do a double check on our church website. And I found things that I could tweak to make more clear. So if you found anything you need to change, jump on it now. Be ready to receive guests in your church this Easter weekend. So what do you need to add or change?

[image by guarsan]

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In this post, entitled “One of the Best Ways To Learn Leadership,” I wrote about the principle of taking leaders you admire and want to learn from out to lunch on a regular basis. Today I had a question about what kind of questions I usually ask during those meeting times. Thanks Chris Jones for asking me about this.

Here are some of the top questions I ask:

1. What do you do for evangelism? What’s your evangelism strategy? Some churches go really big on Easter, Christmas, and usually a few other days in the year. I want to know about that. One pastor I spoke to has had great success in doing a big outreach during Mother’s Day.


2. What do you do for assimilation? How do you treat and respond to first time guests? Some churches send out cards, some call the people, some bake bread and deliver it. I try to understand how they contextualize this process for their area and people they’re trying to reach.


3. How do you get people involved in ministry? What process do they have to go through?
In some churches you have a chance to be involved in ministry once a year during a nominating committee process. In other churches they encourage you to be involved the very next week. I want to know what kind of metric they have in place for people to be involved in leading a team or just joining a team. 


4. What is the organizational structure of your church like? How are decisions made in your church? The second question will reveal most of what you need to know. Either decisions are made through some kind of boards or committees or they’re made by the pastor and his staff, or maybe just the pastor. I want to know if they have teams of elders and deacons and how they function and what their purpose is.


5. Do you do small groups? What’s your small group philosophy?
I want to know if they use affinity groups or cell groups? Are the semester-based or do they meet through the whole year? Do they meet in homes or at the church? How effective have they been?


6. Do you have a stewardship system in place?
What do they do to facilitate giving in the church? Do they do online giving? What do they use for that? How many are giving online?


7. Do you have a discipleship system in place? What’s your strategy for helping the people to become spiritually mature?

Those are some of the main questions I ask about. In short, I just try to be really curious and have an open mind that’s ready to learn. To read the post I reference click here.

What about you? What questions would you add to the list to ask a leader if you had one hour with them?


[image by amanki]

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