How To Be Welcoming to A Visitor At Church

There are many churches in our nation that brag about how friendly they are. Unfortunately, what many of these churches actually mean is that they are friendly to the people that they are friends with. Unfortunately, this is often a trend in small churches. We pray for growth, we ask the Lord to bless, we even work by passing out tracts to people, but as soon as someone comes into the church that we do not recognize, we seem to not know what to do. My church, Calvary Baptist Church in Hartwell, GA, is having a Friend Day on May 18^th. I am very excited about this day, and I believe we are going to see many people that have never been to our church before. That being said, we need to be welcoming to the visitors that come. Ultimately, the goal is not just to get these visitors to come for Friend Day, but for them to get saved and then for them to start coming every Sunday. Now, in order for that goal to be accomplished it is going to take more than a good song line-up, or powerful preaching, or a delicious lunch, it is going to take the friendliness of our church members. In this post, I would like to point out a few ways in which we can be welcoming to the people that come to our churches for the first time.

1.      Do not be angry with them

You may think that this is a strange thing to say. Especially for the first point. Allow me to explain myself. When a visitor walks into your church (hopefully after being greeted by your assigned greeters. More about that some other time.) The visitor needs to figure out where to sit. Sometimes this can be a tricky thing to do. Do they want to sit near where all the other people are sitting or do they want to sit farther away. Should they sit close to the front or further to the back. Suppose they ultimately decide to sit near the back. But there is a problem, that seat the visitor sat in is the pew that you sit in every week. That is your pew. AND NO ONE IS GOING TO TAKE MY PEW AWAY FROM ME!!! You may be laughing right now and telling yourself that this doesn’t happen. You might think that everyone in church is happy to have visitors and it doesn’t matter where they sit as long as they hear about Jesus… I wish you were right, but you are not. It is unfortunate that there are a lot of people that get very angry when their seat is taken in church, they literally lose their minds (Don’t you hate hyperbole? It’s literally the worst thing in the entire world!). We have to decide that if we see someone sitting in our pew at church, we deal with that person in a gracious way. Jesus wouldn’t be angry that someone was sitting in his pew, he would be thrilled beyond belief and he would pray that visitor would be blessed during the service. Key thought: Be gracious.

2.      Approach them

Very often, the visitor comes in, sits down, attends the service, and then leaves. The entire time no one has said a word to them except for at the door. I think one of two things happen to us when we see a visitor. Either one, we expect the visitor to approach us and talk to us (After all, it’s our church. Why do you expect me to go talk to visitor vermin!) or we are too nervous to talk to them because we don’t know them. Many visitors can attest that the “Friendliest Church in Town” is actually not very friendly at all. What brings people back to church? Relationships. How are relationships built? Communication. Here is the scenario: You walk into church and you see that there is a visitor sitting in your pew. Here is what you are supposed to do: You need to walk up to the visitor, have a smile on your face and say, “Hi! Welcome to Calvary Baptist Church! My name is John Doe (if your name is not John Doe, you have my permission to use your own name). What’s your name?” You see, in doing that you have greeted a visitor, you have helped soften the blow of being new to a place where they do not know anyone, and you have started a relationship that just might get the person to come back. This is probably the hardest step to follow but it is the most necessary step to follow.

3.      Ask if you can sit with them

If there is room next to the visitor ask if you can sit with them. This helps the visitor not to feel alone during the service. Oftentimes, a visitor does not have a Bible, share yours with him. Generally be friendly to the visitor. Engage in conversation. What do they do for a living? How did they hear about the church? Do they have families? Things like that. You may have to miss some fellowship with your church friends this week, but this is much more important. Sit with the visitor, engage in conversation, and even introduce them to your friends. Which brings me to the next point.

4.      Do not introduce them to the pastor…yet.

Something that completely blows my mind is how intimidated people get by pastors. I am not an intimidating person. I am not that athletic, I am not strong, I am a little chubby, and I have a baby face that my wife says is adorable (but she is biased). There is nothing in this world that is intimidating about me, but as soon as I say that I am a pastor some people literally go crazy (There’s that hyperbole again!). As the pastor, I avoid contact with visitors before the church service, a visitor is already intimidated by being in a new place, I do not want to add to that intimidation. Sometimes I make an exception to this, but not often, because the job of greeting and building relationships with visitors before the service lies squarely on the shoulders of our church members. Do not say, “Hi, my name is John Doe. Let me introduce you to the pastor!” That is awkward. Now, I’ve said all of this. But let me add to it. Not only should you not introduce the visitor to the pastor before the service, it is also an absolute must TO introduce the pastor to the visitor after the service. Throughout the service, the visitor has had a chance to warm up to the pastor, he has heard the sermon, he heard the announcements. Hopefully the visitor was able to gather from what he saw that the pastor really is an approachable person. Now is the time to meet the pastor. By the way, the pastor desperately wants to meet the visitor. There is no such thing as a pastor that does not want to meet visitors, or at least I think. So here is what you do: After the service is over, look at the visitor and say, “Would you like to meet the pastor?” If they say yes, Take them to where the pastor is standing and say to the pastor, “Pastor, this is John Smith, he is visiting with us today.” It’s that simple. This gives the visitor a bridge between himself and the pastor, that bridge being you.

5.      Next week, continue to be friendly

I believe that if a visitor returns for a second visit, it says a lot about their interest. I also believe that a visitors second visit can make or break whether or not they end up becoming faithful members. If the visitor comes back for the second week, do not ignore them. Do not think to yourself, “They were a visitor last week, they aren’t my responsibility anymore.” No! Greet them, tell them that it is good to see them again, offer to sit with them, and ask them how their week was. You may even want to introduce them to some of your church friends. At this point, you have done something that benefits both you and the visitor, you have both found a friend in each other. If you can create a genuine friendship with a visitor then that visitor will soon become an active member in your church. All it really takes is for you to step out of your comfort zone just a little bit and be friendly.

A few more small pointers:

·         Don’t be a Negative Nancy- be upbeat and cheerful. If you want to say something negative about the music, the preaching, the flower arrangement, anything- DON’T! Negativity is contagious and will make a visitor not want to come back.

·         Don’t criticize them if they show up a month, or more, later- if the visitor doesn’t come back until a month or two later, don’t say something to them like, “Well, looks like you finally got your heart right with God.” Don’t even say stuff like, “Where’ve you been the past few weeks?” These things are discouraging to a visitor. Instead, continue to be friendly, ask them how they’ve been, but do not, in any way, refer to their absence.

·         Engage with them outside of church- invite them over for a meal, go fishing with them. Continue to build that relationship even outside of the church walls.

·         Be attentive in church- if you are going to sit next to the visitor, do not play on your cell-phone during the sermon and, by all means, do not fall asleep. Listen attentively to the message, take sermon notes. The visitor needs to see that you take church seriously.

·         Lastly, pray for them. You’ve met them, you’ve been friendly, you’ve introduced them to the pastor, but the most important work is yet to be done. Add them to your prayer list. Pray for them in a specific way. If they are unsaved, pray that they will get saved. If they need to make some decisions in their life then pray for that. If they told you about some trouble or trial in their life than pray for that. Become their prayer warrior. If you get to a place where you are comfortable with each other, pray with him. If we really believed in the power of prayer, we would pray for our visitors.

I hope those pointers were a blessing. Let’s be diligent in how we deal with those who are visiting our churches!