Posted on 11/11/2014 9:44:11 AM PST by fkabuckeyesrule
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.
1.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.
2.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.
3.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.>P>
4.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.
5.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.
6.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.
7.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.”
8.Boring or bad service. My surprise was not the presence of this item. The surprise was that it was not ranked higher.
9.Members telling guests that they were in their seat or pew. Yes, this obviously still takes place in some churches.
10.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.
My church can be a bit uptight. We had an MMA fighter come in with his family (he and wife had tattoos—very shocking for a small Lutheran church). I kind of knew about him through my work, so I introduced myself, and expressed interest in his sport, but sadly, they never came back. I just wish there was a little more that could have been done to keep them there because they were good people.
Article makes sense.
Having moved around every couple of years I can relate to all of these, but none are gamebreakers.
I do remember once we had visited a church for about 7 weeks and on the way out the door it dawned on me that the pastor didn’t know our names, nor did he seem to care. We found another church.
Why not? Its one thing to suggest changing the message being preached. THAT should not be subject to a marketing study. But why not try to determine what it is your congregants and visitors do and do not like about how the church is run?
The oddest thing, though - the Pastor had all the guests stand up.
My parents keep finding churches like that. After the first song or right before the sermon, the Pastor wants all the guests to stand up, and then he sometimes does a mini interview (Where you from, visiting or local kind of stuff), right in the middle of the service!
If I were church hunting, I would never go again to a church that did that. As it is, my dad actually does most of the talking; he loves bragging on his kids and grandkids, so whatever. But they've found churches that do this in three different states, and a couple of different denominations, so I'm guessing it's pretty common.
No church I ever attended did not manage to lose my children.
So tell me, what does the Bible say about the “meet and greet time”? And about the cleanliness of the children’s facilities? And about the type, and length of music that is part of the worship? Where in the Bible does it tell us EXACTLY how a church should be operated?
And I assume the women keep their heads covered at your church? (I Corinthians 11:6)
I never was comfortable with the Sign of Peace to begin with, then the priests/lector started the whole, "Let's stand and turn to our neighbor..." Then there's the holding hands while praying the Our Father or the whole give Father a helping right hand to impart a blessing moment.
It all depends on one's predisposition I suppose. Is one there to engage in contemplative worship or to socialize.
Personally, I find all the reasons to be copouts.
The purpose of the Pastor is to exercise his spiritual communication gift of pastor-teacher and to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to believers.
Other believers are part of the body of Christ.
If the visitor is not yet a believer, then they should be directed to a person with the spiritual communication gift of evangelism, which is different than the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. Once a believer, then they should be searching for his pastor-teacher.
All the other issues are simply issues of good manners and encouraging one’s fellow man to remain in fellowship with God through faith in Christ.
My sister and I attended a church where they asked the visitors to stand up. We did, and had a form and a pencil thrust into our hands to fill out!
YIKES!!!!!!!
I’m not a fan of the visitors standing so they can get applause before the service. I wouldn’t stand and I don’t applaud. But who the heck are these visitors dumb enough to stand up after being invited to do so even though they are uncomfortable with doing it, and then complain that they did it? Holy cow just remain seated already. If someone were ever to inquire why they didn’t stand up just tell them “I just didn’t feel like doing so, sorry.” What are they going to do, kick you out or something? I mean come on already.
FReegards
I am Catholic as well.
It is not impossible to go to a Catholic church if you are uncomfortable with the sign of peace. You have a couple of options. 1. go to a traditional latin mass 2. instead of handshaking, smile, nod and say peace be with you, there is no rule you must engage in a handshake. Please do not discourage people from attending mass.
Shame on the parishioners in her former church. I wonder if before she left she discussed her feelings with the parish priest. We are such a disposable society, rather than address a problem in our own community (here a parish) we just move on to the next. Her old priest might have liked to know the sentiments of his parishioners, especially those who themselves were most likely not tithing.
When moving to a new city about 6 years ago I went looking for a church. I couldn’t take the 1 hour of Christian rock band that seems to rule all the new wave of hip Christian churches.
Now some sensitive freepers will come out and bash me for not liking it but that’s OK. I can take the arrows.
Gee, why would any first timer be shy or hesitant at having to stand up and face a crowd of strangers who immediately judge them? This author is either lying about being shocked or is unbelievably naive. Was he never the new kid in school and the teacher made him stand in front of the class and tell about himself with everyone making faces and lobbing spit wads at him? The preacher/reverend/priest/rabbi/whatever should give a general “Welcome, everyone” and get on with the lesson before the kids get fussy, the moms need to tinkle and the dads block out everything but the seconds ticking down to kickoff.
What about the woman preacher deal? That drove me away. I don’t need that on my day off.
How about you ask them if they have differing interpretations on the Eucharist which is what the Mass is all about. Go ahead, ask them.
But then why would we want to spoil the protestant narrative.
“two churchgoers GOT INTO A FISTFIGHT OVER A PARKING SPOT!”
I can top that. I knew a guy whose father was run over in the church parking lot after services and was killed. Slow down folks, the football game on TV can wait a little bit longer! Besides, running over people and playing demolition derby in the parking lot probably makes a poor impression on the visitors.
I too find the meet-and-greet routine a bit awkward. A lot of folks are shy.
Modern worship is all about marketing. That’s today’s Churchtainment for you.
I get that clean and safe facilities are an issue but count from the ten and see how many are seeker-centered and how many are Savior-centered.
All I know is we are constantly feed the Papist meme about unity in Romish doctrine.
Here we have another break in that story.
I am an introvert but “passing the peace” doesn’t bother me. As our (un)Dear Leader would probably say, we shouldn’t get all wee-wee’d up over minor things like saying “peace be with you” or “hello, my name is _____” for a few minutes each week. It’s no big deal in the grand scheme of things.
When my husband and I were looking for a church we visited one evening service. The pastor asked us to stand while the entire congregation filed past us with plastered smiles and limp handshakes. While they were doing so it became obvious to me that I was the only woman in the building wearing slacks. The pastor then launched into as sermon about how women should dress as women and men should dress as men. Needless to say, we determined never to go back. That should have been the end of it, but the following Saturday at precisely 9:00 AM, the pastor and a bishop, both wearing suits, showed up unannounced at our home to talk to us about “proper church membership”. We politely informed them we were not going to be joining that church. The following Saturday he was back! This time we didn’t answer the door so he left a book in side the screen door.
I have been in church most Sundays for the last 69 years. I have never encountered anything like that place.
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