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
What about greeters who don’t greet them because they are too busy chatting with someone they know
I sure am glad that Christ sent someone who was genuinely burdened for my soul and as a result shared the plan of salvation with me. If she would have been more concerned with the “order of a worship service” rather than following the Great Commission I would still be loss today. I rejoice that the Alpha and the Omega, the Lord of Lords and Kings of Kings didn’t come up with as many reasons not to tug at my heart and save me as I am reading about “excuses” for not wanting to worship and praise Him in a church setting. Follow the example He set for reaching the masses and I believe we will be so overwhelmed with His Glory that these “excuses” will quickly disappear. Are we just playing church or being the church He has called us to be?
Fascinating responses here… to me, anyway. I must be one of those rare folks. When I visit a church, I tend to gauge the friendliness of a church by how many people come and introduce themselves to me. The meet and greet time, to me, is simply an opportunity to either a)go out and get to know some folks so I can get started building relationships, or b)an opportunity to sit back and see how friendly the church is by how many folks actually approach me and introduce themselves. I’m not looking for a long conversation, but I am looking for folks to pursue me a little, and seek to get to know me. Which I do depends on my mood for the day, as well as the vibe I’ve already gotten since arriving.
The Spirit of Jesus is not there.
I don’t know meet and greets have often been my favorite time in services guest or not.
The main reason’s I have not returned to churches?
Not in order of importance
1) Did not feel welcomed. No one said hi, no one seemed happy or excited to see me. I felt invisible.
2) environment felt really judge-y
I don’t mean for people to compromise biblical teachings but there is a fine line.
3) message was really off base biblically/ members not encouraged to read bible or check for themselves.
4) pastor/ elders seem ‘rich’ while most congregation seems poor/ constant emphasis on ‘obedience’ is ‘giving’.
5) pastoral /elder hypocracy / lack of tansparency/ or seeming lack of some sort of accountability
6) weird clicks.
7) terrible service times. Like bizzarly early… Or goes on and on and on once attended a service went on for. Like 6 hours and then they kept giving people guilt trips if they wanted to go.
8) a church felt more cult like. Than church like. Doesnt happen often for me, but has on occasion:/
9) rude/ gross people. Please dont try to shake my hand after you just blew your nose….
10) members wore wayyyyy too much perfume, or some kind of scented thing made me allergic and I could barely breath.
11) no place for my kids. And where to plug in. By plug in I mean there is no place for me to become a part things. No where to volenteer, no programs or services for our family to put in to get more out. I probably worded that terribly.
12) and sometimes I am just visiting an area.
This is a good read. When I was growing up I was in a group home for a little while. We would go to a different church each Sunday. And a lot of them we decided not to go back to based on judgement. Two I remember very clearly. One of them played extremely loud music and I was about 9 and I had bad migraines a lot so I laid my head down instead of standing while the music was on. The pastor called me out during service and embarrassed me. We never returned. The second time the pastor also called us out. At our group home we had to be back for lunch at a certain time. So we quietly snuck out a few moments early and the pastor stopped his sermon to say “if we were just going to leave early, don’t bother coming at all.” So I guess my number one reason is really being called out and embarrassed.