Church Visitor

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Guest assimilation: the turnaround pastor’s roadmap

Guest assimilation for churches is like helping people out for a stroll in a strange neighborhood. Imagine it is you walking through the neighborhood after sunset. On the homeward leg a young woman approaches and asks, “Can you tell me how to find East Wilshire Terrace? I’ve walked the neighborhood, but I can’t tell which streets go

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Interim pastors can ride the wave without getting swamped

Interim pastors sometimes find themselves called to a church without knowing that it is on the cusp of explosive growth. This happened to me once before and now it looks like I’m in for my second wild ride. Image credit: epicstockmedia / 123RF Stock Photo If rapid growth overtakes an ill-prepared church you (the interim

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7 simple steps to 1st rate church hospitality

  When was the last time you visited a place that billed itself as “the unfriendliest church in town?” Me either. I don’t think I’ve ever been to one. But they’re out there in spirit if not in name. Tim Dolan reports that one of his lay ministry students found one. As an assignment, I

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Can megachurches be church visitor friendly?

A colleague of mine once visited a mega-church in southern California while on vacation. The 6,000 seat auditorium was filled to capacity that Sunday morning. He was quite surprised when, during the ritual exchange of the secret Churchman’s handshake, an elderly lady made her way down the aisle from several rows back to greet him

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Church visitors’ gifts that surprise and delight

Church hospitality is a vital ministry. This is especially true for congregations with a very low church visitor retention rate. To offer anything less than superb church hospitality is sad. To neglect turning visitors into members puts the church in a death spiral. One element of a rich experience that leaves church visitors going, “Wow.

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Church Visitors: 10 Steps to Improve Visitor Retention

Church visitors are probably more important to the Lord than they are to the church they visit! The fact that they willingly endure the rigors of trying a new church shows God is working in them (I touched this briefly in a previous post) Church visitors are  an opportunity and a challenge to static, declining and

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