Ten Insights from Happy First Time Guests

They showed up once. You’d love to see them again.

You’ve considered the concerns of first time guests from our last post, How to Turn First Time Guests into Only Time Guests. Now you want to offer guests every reason to feel welcome and return for subsequent visits.

Here are ten insights from happy first time church guests:

Someone asked me to sit with them. It’s a simple thing. And it may be the best thing you can do. Even though you’ve just met, they feel welcomed like they belong. Because they do.

People introduced themselves to me. A church worship service isn’t about you and your preferences. We gather to worship God with one another. It’s a joy to make new friends too.

They had clear signage. Consider walking into any public building for the first time. Where is the restroom? The children’s area? Does it even look like they are expecting guests?

There was an inviting welcome center. Clearly marked, not cluttered, with a friendly volunteer. A welcome center—even a small table—with a well-designed brochure is always welcome.

Our kids loved their children’s area. You always want your kids to have a good experience no matter where they are, but especially church. Effort here is noticed. So is the lack thereof.

The children’s area was clean and secure. You can have a great worship experience, but fail here never to see that first time guest family again. Make it safe. Keep it clean.

Guest parking was clearly visible. Right next to the accessible parking, the best parking spots should be set aside for guests. Note: “Guest Parking” feels better than “Visitor Parking.”

They didn’t make me stand up and greet people. This really friendly-if-you-belong practice is terrifying if you don’t. As we learned, it is the #1 complaint first time guests. Stop it.

The members weren’t pushy. Friendly, yes. Kind, yes. Welcoming, yes. But not pushy and definitely not creepy. You’ve got members with the right interpersonal skills and discernment.

The guest card was easy to complete. Nicely printed on card stock or well designed and accessed through an easy to find QR code. Contact info says they want to know more. That’s great!

80% of first time church guests are unhappy with their visit, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You just read how to make guests happy. You can read what makes guests unhappy. This post in another response to The Great Dechurching. Thanks to Thom Rainer for these research-based insights from his concise book, Becoming a Welcoming Church.

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How to Turn First Time Guests into Only Time Guests

You read that right. Research tells us 80% of first time church guests are unhappy with their visit. Their first time visiting your church may be their only time visiting your church if you aren’t aware of their top ten concerns.

This topic is one more response to The Great Dechurching—40 million Americans previously active in church no longer attending. When we invite dechurched family and friends to join us, how they experience their first return visit is crucial. Thom Rainer’s brief book, Becoming a Welcoming Church, lists ten concerns of first time guests.

Bad Website. You’ve got two types of potential first time guests: those invited by members and those who start with an internet search. If your website has outdated style or content, is hard to navigate, and full of insider language, those potential guests will go elsewhere.

Unfriendly Members. Ask the average church member about their church and they’ll say they are friendly and welcoming. Ask the average guest, and they have a different experience. Your members don’t speak to guests or make them feel welcome as much as they think.

Poor Signage. You know where everything is and if you don’t, you know who to ask. Your guests do not. Your lack of clear, engaging signage from the parking lot to hallways to sanctuary tells guests they are not welcome or even expected.

No Information Available. Your guests would love to see an information area. Put it in a visible location, clearly directed by signage, staffed with friendly people, free of clutter, and containing well-written, visually appealing material.

Unsafe and Unclean Children’s Areas. You think your children’s ministry is great—you know the loving leaders and precious kids. Your guest looks with new eyes—they see lack of safety protocol and your dingy, dusty, cluttered, outdated spaces.

Stand and Greet Time. You love it—you know the people. Your guests do not love it—they feel awkward or left out. Greet your friends before and after service leaving the worship time for prayer, praise, and proclamation. This is the biggest bother to your first time guests.

Insider Language. Listen to your announcements. Listen to your sermons. Listen to your songs. All of it is full of words that aren’t spoken outside of church. Yes, we need that language, but be mindful to add explanatory words or phrases for the sake of guests.

Boring or Bad Worship Services. Sure enough your guests are judging you based on performance from the platform as well. We know worship is not a performance, but guests are evaluating your service as consumers. Do your best. Then get better. Our Lord deserves it.

You’re in My Pew. Seriously?! In 2024 this still makes the list. You want guarantee no return visit and a bad Google review, make sure you have self-serving, clueless, unkind members with the arrogance to ask people to move out of “their” spot.

Dirty facilities. My mother-in-law says, “It’s one thing to be poor; it’s another thing to be dirty.” No matter how small your congregation is or how old your building is, there is not reason your facilities can not be spotless clean and fresh smelling. Old church is a smell; one that guests don’t like.

Unhappy guests will be only time guests. You can criticize them as judgmental or shallow, but their commitment to Jesus is not your commitment to Jesus. Will you make the effort to lead your church to remedy each of these concerns? Will you glorify God by prioritizing the dechurched and unchurched above your own preferences and comfort?

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Reasons for Hope Amidst The Great Dechurching

Engaging the Dechurched

We continue our examination of The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why They Are Leaving, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? by Jim Davis and Michael Graham with Ryan Burge. What looks like defeat, really has hope. Some things are out of our control, but other things are not. There are effective ways we can respond to The Great Dechurching. Let’s consider some reasons for hope.

Reasons for Hope

First, 51% of dechurched evangelicals said they will return to the church one day. And why or when will they return? When a friend, family member, or coworker invites them. You can do that. Invite people into a personal relationship with you—extend friendship and be welcoming. Invite people to consider a personal relationship with Jesus—share his love and the Gospel. Invite people to attend a church activity or worship service with you—ask them to be included.

Second, research shows belief, belonging, and behavior are connected. When we consider the behavior of church attendance we can be encouraged that behavior follows belief and belonging. Most dechurched people have stopped the behavior of church attendance, but their beliefs are still very much in line. “They left their religious label behind but not their belief” (121). They still belief, we just need to invite them to belong once more.

Third, the relational incompetence of both the churched and their churches is a major problem in dechurching. Those wanting to reverse The Great Dechurching would do well to improve their relational wisdom. We need some critical competencies to increase our relational wisdom. The six competencies of relational wisdom are as follows.

• God-Awareness—God loves the dechurched and desires an rich, love relationship with them; such awareness can empower us.

• Self-Awareness—Healthy within our own personal relationship with God, self-awareness enables us to more wisely relate to others.

• Others-Awareness—Our growing relationship with God and right understanding of self allows us to best engage others in gracious, respectful, and loving manner.

• Emotional Awareness—Of self and others informs how we invite others to consider the Gospel.

• Awareness of How Others Perceive Us—Am I awkward or cringy? Or do I come across naturally, transparent, and, in the right circumstances, more deeply vulnerable as a real person.

• Cultural Awareness—Growing from awareness of others, we must consider our cultural biases and differences when sharing with the dechurched.

In short, all of us would do well to practice calm, quiet, curiosity in relating to others, particularly the dechurched. These points lead us to consider: What awareness do I struggle with and for what reasons? Specifically, how can I improve my awareness?

God So Loved

God so loved the world—churched, unchurched, and dechurched—that he gave his one and only son that whoever—no matter their story, their labels, their background, or their sins—believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. That is still the Gospel. Let us share it winsomely.

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To read the previous posts, The Great Dechurching, click here, and Who Are The Dechurched?, click here.

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Who Are The Dechurched?

In our previous post we began to examine The Great Dechurching by Jim Davis and Michael Graham. In this post, we’ll consider findings about the dechurched.

Who are the Dechurched?

The dechurched are near equally divided in gender: 52% men; 48% women. As to the major traditions of Christianity—Catholicism, Protestantism, and all other Christians—each has dechurched equally at about 32%. Denominationally, Presbyterians have lost 45%, Methodists 37%, Baptists 29%, and Pentecostals 26% amidst the Great Dechurching of the last 25 years. Racially, dechurching among those who previously attended church regularly is 26% Black, 27% White, 14% Hispanic, and 34% of Asian Americans. One surprising insight: The economically disadvantaged are more likely to dechurch. The authors observe that America is largely built for those who follow the “success sequence”: graduate high school; work full time; have children after marriage. The church in America, especially the evangelical church, is built for that formula. How can we think about church for those who are not yet here and those who are no longer here?

How Much is America Dechurching?

40 million Americans have left the church in the last 25 years. The General Social Survey (GSS) provides greater insight into that number. Administered annually since 1972, the GSS is a benchmark for US social research. In 1972, 9% of Americans said they never attend a religious service; by 2021 that had risen dramatically to 31%. In 1972, 41% of Americans attended church at least once a week; in 2021 that was down to 24%. These statistics lead to another bracing realization: 35 million children raised in families now identifying as Christian will no longer identify as Christian or attend church by 2050. Each of these staggering numbers represents a person Jesus died for; what is your reaction to these numbers?

Five Major Types of Dechurched

• Cultural Christians are those who identify as Christians but have little connection to the church. They have casually dechurched—a passive dechurching due to friends no longer attending or simply moving and never finding a new church.

• Dechurched Mainstream Evangelicals are younger on average than their still church friends. They stopped attending because the moved or attendance was inconvenient. Friendships and invitations from churched people can bring them back.

• Exvangelicals are those who have actively left the Christian faith. They are casualties of Christianity; no longer fitting in or having a negative experience that led to their departure.

• Dechurched BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Peoples of Color), was a surprise to researchers who did not consider race in their initial surveys but saw such uniquenesses they looked deeper. This group is too diverse for a one sentence summary other than pointing readers to the book to look deeper.

• Dechurched Mainline Protestants and Catholics. They were another surprise to the researchers as theologically and socially these two groups were so similar.

The greatest insight to apply from all five groups: the most common reason they stopped going to church—they moved. That’s it. If that’s the biggest reason they left, how can we get them back?

How Can We Respond?

Though we’ll consider this question in our next post, I’m guessing that you have some ideas already. Remember, our primary response: Invite. Invite people to friendship. Invite people to consider Jesus. Invite people to attend church. Dechurched or unchurched alike are created in God’s image and he desires a personal love relationship with each of them. And you can introduce them.

To read the previous post, The Great Dechurching, click here.

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The Great Dechurching

The greatest religious movement in the history of the United States has happened. And we didn't even notice. At least not until Covid.

40 million Americans who were previously active church attenders have stopped attending in the last 25 years. That’s 15% of our adult population. No denomination or segment of our population is untouched by this change. That’s a negative movement totaling more than every revival in US history.

Pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham noticed the change in their area and commissioned a nationwide study. What they found is astounding.

“We’re living amid the largest and fastest transformation of religion in American history. ”

— Collin Hansen, p.XV

For the first time in the eight decades the Gallup organization has tracked church attendance, more Americans do not attend church than do attend church. A change began in the early 1990’s with the religious nones—those with no religious preference—growing precipitously each year. Since 1990 the Evangelical Lutheran Church has seen its attendance drop 41%, the Presbyterian Church (USA) dropped 58%, and the United Methodist Church fell 31%. The Southern Baptist Convention has seen a decline of 16% in the last 15 years.

We’ll consider more of these surprising survey results in subsequent posts. We’ll also consider what to do about it.

First, pray. Confess and repent for yourself and your church. Second, invite people to church. One of the most surprising results of the study: 51% of dechurched adults say they will return to church some day. There is hope. God is still sovereign. Jesus still saves all who come.