Read Marcus Bigelow’s Lessons from the Fishin’ Hole for a firsthand account of what it felt like to be an outsider in the South.

featured on newchurches.com

How we play nice at Christian Assembly:

1. We park at the mall because we don’t want to upset our neighbors by blocking driveways or crowding streets.
2. We are a big family so we wear name tags.
3. We give up any saved seats at the greeting time because admit it, they aren’t coming.
4. We reserve the last two rows of the section in front of the upper room for parents accompanied by small children… they might need a quick exit.
5. In our church family everybody serves in some way.

Read his full post How Does Your Church Play Nice?

What a great way to set expectations for your regulars and bring visitors up to speed.

featured on newchurches.com

But what goes into the letter? You don’t want to press too hard or seem too distant. It’s kind of like holding a wet bar of soap: squeeze too hard and it shoots right out the top; hold it too loosely and it falls out the bottom.

Barry Winders offers us a 10 Point Checklist For A Guest Follow-Up Letter at the Church Central Leadership Community blog. There’s some great food for thought and a good starting point for crafting your letter.

featured on newchurches.com

I was inspired, too!

featured on newchurches.com

I visited a church whose bulletin included the typical connection card, used to collect prayer requests and contact information. Following is how they wrote the ‘status’ section.

This is my:

• first time
• second time
• third time
• regular attender
• member

So naturally I checked the box that would complete the sentence as, “This is my member.”

featured on newchurches.com

Pt. 2 When Assimilation Goes Bad

Pt. 3 How To Assimilate

Pt. 4 Hospitality

A key part of helping people assimilate into the culture of the church is follow up.  People will not naturally immerse themselves into the culture of the church.  You have to invite them.  The only way to do that is through follow up.  Here are key elements to consider for follow up that should be in your assimilation plan.

1.  Connect Cards: In order to follow up you need to have a method for collecting contact infomation.  Connect Cards are essential.  Keep them simple and limited only to the information you need.  Consider a next step section that ties into the message.  Leave space for prayer requests. Mention the connect cards throughout the service to provide multiple opportunities for them to be filled out.

2. Contact Management Software.  One of the key features of your church database system is helping you follow up with people. Creating a follow up and assimilation path and automating as much of it as possible will be critical in retaining new people at your church.  We have done a quick comparison of softwares in the downloadable document 2009-contact-management-systems-product-comparison.  Part of your plan should be identifying who will enter the information you collect.

3.  Process.  Define how you will follow up at every stage.  When someone comes the first time to your church, how will you follow up with them?  When?  Who will do it?  What will be communicated and in what medium?  Once this process is defined, ask how can someone fall through the cracks?  Then seal the cracks.

4.  Make it personal.  Email and letters along is not good follow up.  Remember the immersion principle.  To be assimilated people need relationships, responsibility and spirituality (pt. 3).  How does your follow up invite people into those three areas?

featured on newchurches.com

Pt. 2 When Assimilation Goes Bad

Pt. 3 How To Assimilate

Hospitality is creating an environment for people to want to be assimilated.  Ever been to a restaurant that had great food but crappy service?  Did you go back?  Here are key elements to creating a hospitable environment that should make it into your assimilation plan.

1.  A visitor friendly website.  Most people will visit your website before they visit the church.  Is it easy to find directions?  Can they easily determine what child care is like?  Do they get a sense of what their experience will be like?  Consider a Tab on the main page called, “I’m new.”  Include videos and pictures of the environments they will experience.  Include downloadable maps of where to go once they arrive and downloadable versions of information you would give them such as welcome brochures. Consider a translation guide of words they might hear.

2.  Visitor friendly marketing.  Your marketing will create an impression of the culture of the church before they ever attend.

3.  Visitor friendly signs.  Make it easy for people to find your location.  You cannot have too many signs. On the inside of the facility ensure that signs are easy to read and see when you enter.  Everyone wants to know: Where are the bathrooms?  and Where Do I take my kids?

4.  Visitor friendly parking.  Is it easy to park in your facility?

5.  Greeters:  Do your greeters know what to say?  Have they been trained to welcome people and personally walk them to where they need to go?  Are they trained to greet newcomers they meet on the way out as well as on the way in?

6.  Coffee and Food:  Food can go a long way to making someone feel comfortable.  It gives them something to hide behind and provides an outlet for nervous energy.  And by all means don’t serve cheap coffee with stale donated bagels.  Is your cafe easily accessible or do visitors have to wait in line with hungry kids and teens to get a cup of coffee?  Do you have a team that serves the visitors or is it self-serve?

7.  Explain Churchy Elements: Seeker sensitive does not mean water it down.  It means make it understandable.  Nascar does this better than anyone.  When a car breaks down, they use lots of insider language.  But then they flash to the garage and show you on a demo car exactly what piece they were talking about and how that malfunction caused a breakdown.  Watch a few races and you’ll know the difference between loose and tight.

8.  Keep it clean: I’m not talking about swearing.  I’m talking about your facility.   Everthing communicates.  You may not even notice the dirty parking lot, the ugly portable carts in the corner or the smelly bathroom.  I guarantee your guest does.

Nelson Searcy says that you have 7 minutes to make a good first impression.  That means people will judge the church based on your hospitality not your worship or sermon.  What can you do to create a more welcoming church culture?

Need help keeping track of all the tasks in your plan?  Check out Converge.  Recommended reading: Fusion by Nelson Searcy.

featured on newchurches.com

Pt. 2 When Assimilation Goes Bad

Let me start by giving props.  The ideas from this post came from Nelson Searcy and John Donahue.

How do you help a person go from being an outsider to being a part of the church culture?  You do it the same way you would with any culture: Immersion.  No, I’m not talking about baptism, though that may end up being part of it.  If you want to become a part of a culture you have to immerse yourself in it.  For someone moving to a foregin culture that means spending time with the people who are a part of that culture.  Watching the programs they watch in their language.  Eating at the restaurants they eat at.  Going to the festivals they attend.  When in Rome…

How do we accomplish that in the church? (Completely ripped off from the above sources but edited into a shorter format.)  You’re Welcome.

1. Relationships: God created us with a desire for relationships.  Adam was pretty bored until Eve came around.  You can’t learn a culture without interacting with people.  What environments are you creating to enable visitors to spend time with your people?  What processes are in place to ensure that a visitor interacts with people from the church?
2. Responsibility: We are all created with unique gifts to serve.  By giving people responsibility you are helping them fulfill their God-given purpose.  You are also giving them a place within the culture of the church.  What obstacles would keep a person from serving?  Do people understand where they can serve?  Is there a process for identifying gifts and talents?  How do ensure that each person is serving?
3. Spirituality (I don’t care about alliteration): People are created with a desire to connect with God.  Hopefully connecting with God is a core value of your church culture.  If not, stop assimilating people.  Providing people with environments to connect with God will help them connect into the culture of the church.  Do you have a clear process for discipleship?  Do people understand how to develop a growing relationship with Jesus?  What environments do you provide for people to learn more about God?  What tools are you equipping people with to connect with God?

featured on newchurches.com

Before developing an assimilation plan, take a step back.  Evaluate the existing culture of the church.  Ask what is your unique purpose or mission as a church?

• What is it that God has called us to in this community?
• What are the values that define this church?
• Do our people reflect those values?
• Can people in the church communicate the vision?

featured on newchurches.com