NEW RELATED POST: Should Your Church Stop Having a Stand and Greet Time?
If you attend a church regularly, you’ve probably noticed the phenomenon. A guest shows up for a worship service, but he or she never returns. It is, unfortunately, a common issue in many churches.
I did a Twitter poll to ask these first-time guests why they chose not to return to a particular church. While some of the responses were anticipated, I admit being a bit surprised with some of them.
Though my poll is not scientific, it is nevertheless fascinating. Here are the top ten responses in order of frequency.
- Having a stand up and greet one another time in the worship service. This response was my greatest surprise for two reasons. First, I was surprised how much guests are really uncomfortable during this time. Second, I was really surprised that it was the most frequent response.
- Unfriendly church members. This response was anticipated. But the surprise was the number of respondents who included non-genuine friendliness in their answers. In other words, the guests perceived some of the church members were faking it.
- Unsafe and unclean children’s area. This response generated the greatest emotional reactions. If your church does not give a high priority to children, don’t expect young families to attend.
- No place to get information. If your church does not have a clear and obvious place to get information, you probably have lowered the chances of a return visit by half. There should also be someone to greet and assist guests at that information center as well.
- Bad church website. Most of the church guests went to the church website before they attended a worship service. Even if they attended the service after visiting a bad website, they attended with a prejudicial perspective. The two indispensable items guests want on a website are address and times of service. It’s just that basic.
- Poor signage. If you have been attending a church for a few weeks, you forget all about the signage. You don’t need it any more. But guests do. And they are frustrated when it’s not there.
- Insider church language. Most of the respondents were not referring to theological language as much as language that only the members know. My favorite example was: “The WMU will meet in the CLC in the room where the GAs usually meet.”
- Boring or bad service. My surprise was not the presence of this item. The surprise was that it was not ranked higher.
- Members telling guests that they were in their seat or pew. Yes, this obviously still takes place in some churches.
- Dirty facilities. Some of the comments: “Didn’t look like it had been cleaned in a week.” “No trash cans anywhere.” Restrooms were worse than a bad truck stop.” “Pews had more stains than a Tide commercial.”
There you have it. The top ten reasons first-time guests said they did not return to a church. I can’t wait to hear from you readers. You always have such good additions and insights.
Posted on November 1, 2014
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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539 Comments
Not having everything needed in the bulletin to follow along with the service I found very frustrating when we were trying to find a new church. I felt lost and confused at times.
As a pastor I struggle with this issue and believe there is no “one size fits all” answer. I pastor (bi-vocationally) a small church and we do have a brief (less than 2 minutes) time where everyone is asked to stand and greet each other. We make no distinction for and do not single out “guests”. When we have done guest follow-up it has been a universally praised experience. We had an African-American single lady visit our almost entirely anglo church and when we did follow-up her comment was particularly how welcomed she felt when so many people greeted her.
Each church has to make its own decision but if a greeting/fellowship time is used I do believe the regular members/attenders need to understand that they are to seek out guests and never let new faces go un-greeted. That’s my take from my church. Certainly it does not apply everywhere.
I don’t understand what is wrong with “fellowship time” in church.
I think “I’m introverted” is a pretty poor excuse. I am introverted by default too. But I know that greeting the brothers and sisters is mandatory. I am shocked that people would find a handshake and a personal “hello, how are you? welcome to the church” so offensive.
My blood boils when people say they skip the time to go to the restroom or hide. It’s not all about you. It’s about the body.
If having strangers shake your hand is the #1 cause of defection, we are in a sad state as a church.
I am a member of the Episcopal Church (for 35 years) and my brother is a former Episcopal priest. I remember discussing with him the “passing of the peace” and relating to him how I hated it! I felt it disrupted the service–it’s always followed by the weekly announcements and then by communion. This segment of the service distracted me from communing with God and preparing for communion….and as I told my brother this, he started laughing! He said that within the Episcopal Church, passing the peace is basically the most important part of the service–perhaps even the entire point of the service. He said, “You are asking God to bless your neighbors with peace. So, you are loving God and your neighbors…isn’t this the point of gathering to worship together?”
I felt like an idiot–and I’ve never viewed the passing of the peace in the same light. I’m not going to say I enjoy it–but now I try to use it to connect with my elderly pewmates, wishing them SINCERELY, God’s Peace. Perhaps if congregants were educated on what the passing of the peace truly means, there wouldn’t be quite the same distaste for it.
Now–this is not to be confused with asking visitors and guests to stand up and do a meet and greet during the service. This is not part of the Episcopal service at my church–nor would I advocate it. We have the usual cards on the ends of each pew, for anyone interested in learning more about our church or wanting a visit from the parish priest.
I view meet and greet as filler, not unlike illustrations. I went to one church who deliberately decided to extend the M & G to 15 minutes of random conversations. For a few Sundays I wandered around the church building and one Sunday I wandered out the door and never went back.
On the positive side, there are plenty of churches that grow. Look for those and you might feel welcome. We go to NewSpring Church in South Carolina. Their website is http://www.newspring.cc and you can even participate online.
But judging from some of the comments here, some people don’t WANT to feel welcome. That makes them “uncomfortable”. It just goes to prove that you can’t please everybody.
I would like to add recruiting you aggressively on your first visit. I have a degree in music education as well as a degree in computer engineering. Very few churches have I visited where I haven’t been asked to do their Christmas pageant and run their sound boards and revamp their website within the first 30 minutes of visiting. One even managed to guilt me into joining their small music group and I showed up expecting a rehearsal and they said “So what are you going to play for the offertory for this evening?” Uggggh. I ended up sitting 4 hours through a Lutheran Lent service (I’m not even Catholic or Lutheran, but those were the only two real choices I had in the geographic area) embarrassed to be play in front of a church wearing blue jeans (remember, I dressed for a rehearsal).
I don’t know how many churches I’ve visited where I was just so overwhelmed on the FIRST VISIT regarding EVERY possible musical and technology based need.
And everyone wants it for free. I’m happy to serve, but if I’m not a member of your church, I expect a pay check. It’s how I put food on the table. I can’t do everything for free for anyone who asks for it.
Having moved frequently in the past seven years for my husband’s work, we have been to many, many churches looking for a church home. Contemporary music is one thing that turns us off. Not all contemporary, but strictly contemporary, where they do not take into consideration the age of the congregation. And even little churches, which are not that “type”, somehow feel the need to be “relevant” and do contemporary very poorly for the sake of doing it. Unfriendly church members is another thing. Especially when they do a handshaking time, and people approach you like your old friend, but wouldn’t give you a look or a smile, except for handshaking time. We have been in some very excellent, well-rounded churches over the years, so we may be pickier than some, because we know what we are looking for. But the above are a couple of things that have made us not want to return to a church to give it a second look.
It’s funny. After being a member of my church for 25 years, the meet and greet is my least favorite part of the service. Most often, I utilize this time for restroom or beverage break.
The childcare worker let our 7 year old out of class without matching his ID sticker! He told me he sent him with a grandma and her grandsons, I guess our son just followed the crowd…thank goodness he only wanted to play in the front play zone sooner, b/c that’s where he was. But that was the first time we ever visited, and while we’ll probably go back again, that experience is forever burned into my mind as the first impression of the church.
We were fairly new at a church and had 2 young kids at the time. We were attending a Sunday School class then the service afterwards. After the SS class I had a funny feeling, and went to check on my 3 year old in her class. I was shocked to find her ALONE in the room with the door wide open. The workers just left her. I stayed in the classroom with her until the next teacher came in, then had her introduce me to the children’s director. We had a rather frank talk about what had happened, and thankfully she realized that the church had majorly screwed up. She even called me later in the week to follow up that she had spoken to the teacher and had set new policies in place to make sure that never happened again.
Now if we attend a new church I will not leave my kids in the nursery. I don’t like when a church tries to push me to leave my kids in the nursery. These are strangers you are asking me to leave my most precious treasures with. Please respect my right to keep them with me..