Hospitality Vision and Goals

Hospitality Ministries flow out of the vision to grow our church.  (transforming lives for Jesus Christ) Our church’s vision and hospitality practices are closely related.  We must have a vision for our church to grow its impact, not just numbers.

Begin to see our church visitor as our guest, a gift of God.    They are men, women, and children that God might bring to our church so that our church can make a Kingdom impact.    Some might be believers and followers of Christ looking for a place where they can serve, use their gifts and talents, and participate in the life and mission of the church to bless its community.  Some might be on their journey to discover Christ.  Whether they are intentionally seeking because of a pressing felt need or responding to ongoing invitations of your church members, they are attending and hearing elements of the good news.    We can impact the lives of all our guests.  But if they don’t come back for a second visit, we will have little effect on their life.

Our goal is to help visitors decide to return and develop new relationships within our congregation.   Without the practice of honoring our guests through red carpet hospitality, we will not fulfill our vision of transforming lives for Jesus Christ.

Hospitality Audit:   We all have blind spots that keep us from seeing things that are out of place and create unnecessary barriers to first-time visitors.  One way to audit this is to look at a Sunday morning experience as if you are a first-time visitor.  Identify and remove unnecessary obstacles that may create an unintentional barrier to return.   Maybe enlist (invite) someone who does not attend worship anywhere to do this as well.  Here are some things to watch for:

• How will a first-time visitor feel in our church?
• Do we make it easy for our visitor to get to their seat?
• Do we make it easy for new friendships to form? Or, does our welcome process and experience accidentally put up barriers and give visitors excuses not to return?

Greeters:  Guests want to feel like they matter to you and your church. They want to be noticed but not suffocated.  There is a very narrow window of time when guests show up-  approximately 15 minutes.  This means that greeters need to make every effort to:

• make a personal contact with every guest, but not share life stories. Don’t get stuck in conversations; say “HELLO” and move on. In fact, when greeters start asking too many questions, two things happen:    First-time guests feel anxious-They feel pressured to look good and fit in.   2.  You’re likely missing other guests.
• look a guest in the eye and validate their presence. This makes people feel comfortable and at home. First-time guests who miss out on a smile because a greeter is engrossed in a conversation are far less likely to return