By: Dustin M. Walters
Church leaders have a responsibility to create remarkable guest experiences by being a welcoming church through an intentional hospitality ministry. From the outset, let it be known that by remarkable does not mean attractional. There might be some similarities in the two descriptors yet remarkable is the appropriate term used in this context. This blog post will invite church leaders to create remarkable guest experiences by prioritizing the hospitality ministry and will conclude with some practical suggestions. Before we get there, I want to share some background about why this topic matters to me.
Every week I oversee the hospitality ministry at Formation Church in Chandler, Indiana, by guiding our church’s hospitality team to create lasting connections with a goal of moving worshippers from crowd to connection. Our hospitality team consists of door greeters, parking lot greeters, one coffee specialist, a rear door greeter, and additional people who serve as hallway hosts when volunteer staffing allows. The hospitality team works closely with our security team to provide both a welcoming and watchful presence.
Introduction
Your church has an opportunity to make space for faith beginning in the parking lot, as Matt recently wrote here. Hospitality in the context of a local church is not merely providing meals after someone has passed from this life to the next. Christian hospitality is an intentional practice of welcoming neighbors and strangers with hope that genuine love will open doors for Gospel conversations and heart transformation.
Ordinary believers practice hospitality as a demonstration of Christ’s love for all, yet the local church has an increased responsibility in hospitality ministry. It is not about appearing to be loving and welcoming. It is about loving people and desiring to know and care for them. Real love is more important than pretend love – your church’s congregants will know the difference. So what does a welcoming church culture consist of?
A Welcoming Church Culture
A welcoming church culture establishes a foundation of hospitality. A welcoming church is a church in which first time guests are noticed and connected immediately with at least one person before the service ends. It is a church where individuals are known by name and know others by name. A welcoming church culture prioritizes guest follow-up. It is great to ask for contact information through something like a welcome card or bulletin tear-off, yet it is something else entirely to have a meaningful follow-up system with those who provide their information. A welcoming church consists of ministry volunteers who view their ministry as joyful service rather than a begrudging obligation. A member of the hospitality team must have a certain personality. Do not put a grump at the front door, pastor, or you will soon regret that decision. A culture of hospitality shows people where to go rather than merely telling them. Obviously, there is more to it than I have shared here, yet a meaningful hospitality ministry flows directly from a certain culture or expectation which is set directly by the pastor and his team of ministry servants.
Remarkable Hospitality and the Ordinary Means of Grace
I am sure someone reading this post will immediately push back against what I am writing about hospitality because “that seems too much like a megachurch mentality”! I want you to consider that just because a megachurch practices certain things does not mean other churches cannot use some of those best practices.
God changes lives through the text-driven preaching of the Bible, the fellowship of believers, prayer, and intentional Christian accountability. God’s ordinary means of grace, point to Scripture’s authority and how God pursues relationships with people. Even so, God does everything with intentionality and so must the hospitality ministry in your church. We do not have to be terrible at basic things to affirm the ordinary means of grace. It is not a contradiction to have a guest-follow up system and remain committed to the Bible as our only rule of faith and practice.
When I graduated from Welch College, I struggled with this concept because I thought we should not try to learn anything from megachurches because they have corrupted the gospel. (By the way, the numerical size of a congregation has nothing to do with Gospel commitments. There are large churches that actually teach the whole counsel of God and see individuals and families changed for the glory of God.) I love the small church where deep relationships are forged and people are known by name. God has done some of his greatest work through small or average size congregations.
One issue I see creeping up all the time is that churches and pastors pray for revival and Gospel growth in the community but do nothing to prepare for any new people God might send. My pastor preaches a sermon on digging ditches from 2 Kings 3:16-20.
Here’s that passage for you.
“And he said, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Make this valley full of ditches.’ “For thus says the LORD: ‘You shall not see wind, nor shall you see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, so that you, your cattle, and your animals may drink.’ “And this is a simple matter in the sight of the LORD; He will also deliver the Moabites into your hand. “Also you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall cut down every good tree, and stop up every spring of water, and ruin every good piece of land with stones.” Now it happened in the morning, when the grain offering was offered, that suddenly water came by way of Edom, and the land was filled with water.“
2 Kings 3:16-20
Believers are called to dig ditches while waiting for God to send the water. As it relates to the hospitality ministry, prepare your team for guests to arrive and teach them how to interact with those guests. You prepare by training your team and you also prepare by praying for opportunities to interact with those first time guest. Prayer and training serve as “ditch digging” as the hospitality team member eagerly anticipates God’s work.
I will go a step further. Christians and local church leaders should seriously evaluate individual and corporate evangelism. We should expect first-time guests because of evangelism efforts. Churches that do not have any first time guests for a long period of time should evaluate their presence in the community. I do not mean this to sound harsh but as a motivation to get to work and train your people to share their faith. A lack of guests does not necessarily mean your church is dead, yet one cannot help but consider the health of a church where no one but those who have always been there attend. If your church has not had a first time guest in sometime, you have to stop and ask why.
There is a point to be made about “equipping the saints for ministry” though, whether you serve a small congregation of 5 people or a large congregation of 500. Ephesians 4:7-16 teaches us that God gives spiritual gifts to the believers. Pastors and teachers are specifically instructed in this passage to “equip the saints for ministry”. Pastor, who are you currently raising up to be a lay-leader in your congregation? You are not called to do all the work of ministry. Equip the saints, brother! Perhaps a starting point is asking God who should serve as a volunteer then begin pursuing those individuals, discipling and training them, and sending them out to serve on a consistent basis. Let us now consider how to develop a volunteer ministry so your church can create remarkable guest experiences.
Developing a Volunteer Ministry
The hospitality team is one team serving alongside other teams in the church to accomplish the mission of God and carry out the Great Commission. Some of our readers will immediately feel the shame from the enemy about the lack of volunteers in your ministry. Our intention here is to encourage you not leave you defeated. If you do not have ministry teams making Sundays happen, you need to begin developing leaders now. Create a ministry of excellence that does not revolve around you and can sustain itself when God calls you elsewhere or when He calls you home. Here are some practical suggestions.
- Create an on-boarding process. At Formation Church, we offer a four week course called “Growth Track”. To serve on a team, one must complete this course. Week three focuses on spiritual gifts and provides information to on-board a person to the ministry team after week four. If you want more information about Growth Track, reach out.
- Prayerfully select team leaders and create teams where there is a need. The teams your church needs will vary. Some teams commonly needed include the parking team, hospitality, children’s ministry, security, worship, and prayer team.
- Create written team guidebooks or standard operating guidelines which serve to cast vision, document expectations, and hold team members accountable. Revise regularly. Distribute guidebooks to team leaders and team members. It is the responsibility of the pastor to hold team leaders accountable to follow those best practices and the team leaders must hold volunteers accountable. That must be carried out with love, patience, and grace, no doubt!
- Determine how you will schedule volunteers. It can be a simple printed paper calendar or software if your church can afford that. At Formation Church, we use Planning Center. I cannot express how much I appreciate this software and it is worth looking into, even for small churches. The system you need might be different than what others need, yet there must be an intentional process. If you are worried about scheduling on a low budget, use a simple spreadsheet that makes sense to you and your team. Planning Center is wonderful, yet I realize it is not feasible for some.
- Promote weekly team huddles where your team members can share wins, pray, and prepare for anything happening during any given Sunday. Regular team huddles keep volunteers connected to the overall programming of the church. Teams arrive early and stay late to accomplish their part in God’s mission. Team huddles should be scheduled at least thirty minutes before a service if not before.
Conclusion
When I worked at Chick-fil-A (3 stores in 3 states, by the way), I had the opportunity to work as a training manager at one of the stores I worked at. Chick-fil-A intentionally trains new employees to create REMARKABLE guest experiences by creating eye contact, sharing a smile, speaking with a friendly tone, and always saying “my pleasure” which personalizes the interaction with the customer. Now, I will say that as a customer I have seen that demonstrated well at some locations and poorly in others. The “my pleasure” remark is not as frequent as it once was and to that I express my sincere frustration as a former CFA training manager. I blame operators for not holding their team to the higher standard that came from Truett’s vision. So what hath God’s chicken to do with the hospitality ministry in the local church?
The church exists as the living body of Jesus Christ. The church is both universal and local. The local church as the actual gathered assembly has a responsibility to pursue relationships with individuals and families in her community for the purpose of Gospel conversations and Gospel transformation. Becoming a more welcoming church is not being “seeker sensitive” in the negative sense of that phrase. It is about removing as many barriers as we can so that sons and daughters can come home to Jesus. We need to remove barriers we have erected that prevent people from coming to Christ. A lack of intentionality in hospitality might result in people that could experience life-change never returning to your church because they did not feel seen, loved, and welcomed.
Chick-fil-A is intentional about creating and maintaining remarkable guest experiences. Should the local church, the living body of the Lord Jesus Christ care less about people and a hospitality culture than the business world does? Absolutely not. Our calling is much higher than selling chicken, though that is an important calling as well. (All of God’s people said, Amen!) Our calling is to carry out the Great Commission and do everything we can to make disciples who make disciples. We cannot make disciples if we do not practice intentional hospitality from the church sign to the parking lot to the sanctuary.
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