This material is originally from a post from Will Mancini, who is a “pastor turned vision coach.” He’s worked with multiple churches, including mega-churches to church plants, and is the founder of Auxano, the creator of VisionRoom.com, and the author of Church Unique.
He is passionate about helping the Church to create and sustain excellent guest services and hospitality, and talks about a concept, in his book Church Unique, that he calls “pre-evangelism”. Pre-evangelism, according to Mancini, is the primer for someone’s coming to faith in Christ. He says that, “We are commanded in Scripture to be hospitable. The Greek word philoxenia literally means to “love strangers” and is used in Romans 12:13 and Hebrews 12:3.
There are few other voices, as clear as he, on the subject of guest services in the church. He wrote “10 Mind Blowing Facts to Fuel Your Hospitality Ministry”. You can see the full article here.
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1. You will have more guests in one year than you think. Our “information gathering” in churches doesn’t even capture the majority of guests. Auxano research shows that five to eight percent of your worshipping community will self-identify as guests. Therefore the number of guests in one year is: [ (Ave. weekly worship attendance) x (.05) x (52)]
2. Many of your guests are going through situations that make them more responsive to God. These are the folks that are most likely to be moving, changing jobs, getting divorced, having kids, etc.
3. Your guests are assessing very quickly whether or not they are coming back. This happens much faster than we think. For example, read The 11-Minute Difference.
4. Your guests represent step one of accomplishing the Great Commission- these are the people coming to you! How much does your church spend on foreign missions? Compare that to how much we invest into the fish that swim to the boat before we cast a net.
5. A guest who is attending may represent years of prayer, service and invitation by a church member. My mom and I attended church without my father for 12 years. The first time my Dad came to church with us, imagine how I felt about the church and the hospitality of the people. All I could think is “Don’t screw up!”
6. Studies show that guests will talk about their initial experiences 8-15 times with other people, whether good, or bad. Serve guests well, and multiply your message.
7. A welcoming ministry is a great “shallow end of the pool” to get people involved in service for the first time. Yes, you have plenty of intimidating places to serve like worship, small groups and children’s ministry. So why not leverage an easy place to start?
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Mancini makes there point that investing “in a welcoming ministry is an investment into every other ministry your church offers. I ask churches to dream about what ministry they might start. I then tell them to get it done by first having great guest services. Do you want an amazing prison ministry? Maybe the next Chuck Colson is visiting next week. Building a great ministry to guests nourishes a culture of hospitality because of the concrete reminders to the entire congregation that guests matter.”
See more about Will here.
Tim Holman, Writer 