Should I Stay or Should I Go? Part 2:

The second notion is really about how “welcome” or “cared for” the visitor “feels” at the church.

Now, for members, as the recent WillowCreek Community Church study outlines, “care” really varies by “where” that member is in their relationship to Christ.
But for visitors, the notion of Church Member Care is extremely important. They are in the process of weighing many factors while trying to make a decision (we will cover some of those shortly). But, when it comes to “care”, it breaks down into a matter of “perception” and “expectation”. In other words, we have expectations when it comes to how we believe a “visitor” (a guest) should be treated by the church (the host) and when we DO visit, that "expectation" is confronted with our “perception” of how we were, indeed, treated.

Remember, we are talking about people, so we are dealing with “expectations” and we are dealing with “perceptions” and not an analytical or even measurable “reality”.

To express Church Member Care differently, this might help:
CHURCH MEMBER CARE = (PERCEPTION) – (EXPECTATION)

Underlying the concepts of “Member Care” and “Member Sacrifice” are several forces that we all consider when choosing one “thing” or “group “ to join.

From Part 1 of this piece, we covered that we typically consider, sometimes consciously sometimes sub-consciously several variables when visiting a church:
• Time – how much time will it take for me and my family?

• Attitude – how do I and my family typically approach new experiences? How does this “feel”? Am I being welcomed?

• Effort – how much of my other resources will this take… and will it be “worth it”?

• Pain – how much does it hurt to leave what I currently have/do and, even before I get engaged HERE, am I willing to have this kind of pain again if I choose to leave here at some time?

• Loyalty – How will I know if these people are loyal to me and my family?

• Past and Present – what has happened to me in the past and what is happening now in my life that could be impacting my experience (was I last picked on a team as a child? Have I always been the “star”?)?

• Future – is this a place and group of people I could see growing old with? Have my children grow up in?

With these issues all up in the air… all individualized and personal… and really all operating in most of us at a sub-conscious level, the question becomes what, if anything, can a church do to minimize these concerns and have the visitor at least be willing to lower these barriers quickly and honestly?

When considering all of this it is important to remember that these things are very personal and individual. By this, I mean, that neither you nor your church… no one other than that person can control these things (no matter how hard you try). BUT you can work within these parameters in order to improve the likelihood that visitors will be willing to lower their barriers and the church and church members and staff will be organized and prepared for that lowering.

The process involves swiftly building relationships and then deepening those relationships. The key relationships from a “priority” perspective are:
• God
• Jesus
• Pastoral Staff
• Ministry Teams
• Small Groups
• Congregation
• Community

However, “priority” isn’t always the way things happen… or should happen.

Typically, the process of creating relationships is ordered this way:
• Community
• Congregation
• Pastoral Staff
• Jesus
• Small Groups
• Ministry Teams
• God

In the Willow Creek Community Church research, the data indicates that this is a process of becoming more “Christ and God Centered”. We tend to start with people we know and who we like.

That is, usually, people who are like us. If we don’t know anyone, we look for that type of a connection. We seek "common ground". If we do know someone, we look to assure ourselves that there are more folks “like us” that we can ultimately build connections with. This is why the most effective form of outreach and follow-up after a person has visited a church is to have a member of the congregation do the visit or “touch” rather than a member of the pastoral staff.

Making sure that we have aligned spiritual gifts and trained members of the congregation to effectively “greet” and begin that “connecting” process from the very start will help the visitor make their choice and the church grow in size and retain more members.

More important is making sure that we have a clearly outlined process, for both visitors and congregants, that defines a system for follow-up. Of all of this, though, and most important, is assuring that we have identified and trained those whose spiritual gifts, experiences and abilities line up with these types of a ministries.

Churches have a challenge. We’ve outlined a few of the psychological barriers our visitors erect. Being aware of these barriers and getting the staff, the board members, ministry leaders, small group facilitators, and any others all committed to dealing with these challenges and willing to improve the effectiveness of the outreach of the church is the first step. We are not just talking about increasing the number of attendees, we are talking about, really, connecting with people such that they choose a relationship with Christ and then choose to grow in that relationship.