Key Points for Welcoming Visitors to Church

As an active participant in church ministry involving the technology and student ministry, I have been given the opportunity to look at what might inspire young adults to move forward in their faith journey. I found that the following points are critical to attracting or retaining young adults to church.

- The traditional physical church setting (the traditional sanctuary) is not ideal for attracting those who have not attended a church for a significant period or those who do not like the traditional setting. The more contemporary the facility, the better it is for welcoming those who are new to church. Churches are now located in warehouses, large department store buildings, and other nonconventional facilities with great success.
- Interaction and welcoming people to church is critical for visitors, the greeting part is easy enough for churches to do, the harder part is to make them feel welcomed and to engage the visitors in a low key manner to help them get situated with the facility and worship service.
- Having a coffee bar (coffee, tea, hot chocolate, water, etc.) is important to welcoming visitors and existing worshippers alike as it provides the opportunity to create relationships, which is critical in one’s faith journey.
- Some kind of opportunity after the worship service to engage visitors and existing worshippers also provides another opportunity for relationship building. During a visit to Hawaii, I visited New Hope-Kailua Church in Oahu; they did a simple lunch after the service, which provided a great opportunity to meet new and existing worshippers.
- Using small groups to do a bible study of some sort is a key method of encouraging one’s progression of faith study. Small groups should only go for a specific period; otherwise, they become a click, which is not what you want.
- The use of multimedia is important in conveying key points during the message and during the music. People really like the words of the music being projected on large screens, it makes following along a lot easier.

I hope this provides some useful information for church leaders.