Through the Lens of a Visitor

Seeing Church Through the Eyes of a Visitor

Terry Allcorn reflects on lessons learned from visiting churches in many settings and sizes. He encourages congregations to consider how visitors experience everything from websites and parking to Communion, offering, signage, and follow-up.

• Churches should make service times, locations, parking, and entrances clear before and during a visit.
• Visitors benefit from simple explanations of Communion, offering, children’s areas, and other worship-service practices.
• Thoughtful follow-up and visitor-sensitive language can help guests feel welcomed without being singled out.

By Terry Allcorn

One of my favorite opportunities as president of Kentucky Christian University is to visit churches. I love the local church and I count it as a privilege to preach in or visit about 40 churches a year. I’ve had the privilege of speaking in rural churches and in urban churches. I’ve enjoyed preaching primarily in English, but also sometimes in Spanish. I have visited churches of almost every size in almost every community setting that you can imagine. I’ve visited churches that have long-serving preachers and churches that are looking for a preacher. Some churches have the ability to sustain a fulltime preacher, and perhaps some other positions, while others enjoy a bi-vocational minister.

In that context and out of appreciation for all that I’ve learned about ministry by visiting those churches, I’d like to offer some comments on welcoming visitors that I hope are helpful and taken in the spirit of helpfulness. I believe that all of us become somewhat blinded to our surroundings in a place where we feel very comfortable. This happens in businesses, universities, and for our purposes here—churches. Below are some comments that are intended to help church people begin to see their church through the eyes of a visitor.

Before Visitors Arrive

It all starts before the visit. Is your social media up to date? What information is on your website? Watch carefully for dated information. And most of all, please clearly publish the times and locations of your services. Make service times and locations the easiest information to find on both social media posts and on the website. All the other information has its place and is important, but you really want to be clear about when and where a person can attend a service.

I know that you likely know where to park at your church and how to get in the building. But you would be amazed at how many churches we have visited where we drive around looking for where to park and then attempt to determine the preferred way to enter the building. Remember, visitors feels like they are walking into someone else’s home the first time they come to your building. Consider having a person in the parking lot or at least at the preferred entrance who can provide a friendly welcome and invite them into the building. Perhaps even stage others just inside who can direct them to children’s programming and to the worship service area. It may all seem obvious, but it may not be so obvious to someone who has never been in your building.

Along those same lines, ask someone who has never been in your building to walk in the front door and find key areas such as children’s program areas, the sanctuary, the bathrooms, the visitor’s center, and so forth. They can provide a simple audit of your signage and wayfinding. And please be sure that there are no signs pointing to non-existent services, such as an unstaffed nursery. You create an expectation by posting a sign that says nursery, coffee corner, welcome desk, and so forth. Be sure to keep the promises that your signage advertises. Of course, make sure you have clean and well-maintained facilities, including clean restrooms.

Helping Visitors Understand Worship

There are aspects of the worship service that are unclear to even the most experienced church visitor. For example, when and how communion is offered varies greatly. Do I need to pick up a disposable communion packet on the way in or is it passed out during the service? Do we all take it together or just take it after the communion meditation? Yet there are even more basic questions that often go unanswered in my experience. Who can take communion? Why do we take communion every Sunday? For that matter, why do we take communion in the first place? Whether you include a kindly worded note in the bulletin or ensure that someone provides a brief explanation, visitors will appreciate knowing both the mechanics and the purpose of communion.

I’ve also been fascinated at the lack of clarity surrounding the offering. Please remember that the offering is not to “allow us to offer all these programs.” It is an opportunity to worship through the giving of gifts to God. It is the good stewardship of those offerings that allows for programs, staff, and buildings. Whether you are passing the plate or not, the act of worshipping God through giving needs to be a clear part of the worship service and more than a slide during announcements with instructions on how to give.

After the Service

After the service, plan for a balance of people being friendly and not acting like a ship wreck survivor greeting the rescue party when they come ashore! Have a casual way to collect their contact information. This typically is done at a visitor’s center in medium and larger churches. Smaller churches can develop a less formal approach. Regardless, making visitors feel welcome as they leave may be just as impactful as making them feel welcome as they enter. Visitors tend to arrive right at the start of the service time in my experience. Having a plan to catch them after the service and answer any questions is an important point of contact.

Should you collect a mailing address, a hand written card should go in the mail Monday morning that simply thanks them for attending and that invites them back on Sunday. Information on small groups, children’s and youth programs, and so forth can either be included or sent in a separate mailing with a letter from the preacher.

There are other opportunities to make visitors feel welcome such as training everyone involved in the worship service to be sensitive to the presence of visitors. Avoid phrases like, “Hey, we have visitors this week.” You don’t want to inadvertently communicate that visitors are an anomaly at your church. Welcoming visitors during announcements without pointing them out, giving the page numbers for Scripture passages that correspond with the pew Bibles, being careful to avoid or at least explain church words that we never say anywhere else, and so froth will help visitors move past feeling like a stranger and begin getting to know the Savior that we all gathered to worship. Consider forming a task force of a variety of individuals who could look for ways to make visitors feel more comfortable. And may God bless your efforts to grow his kingdom!

Author: Terry Allcorn

Terry Allcorn is President of his alma mater, Kentucky Christian University.