Creating a…… Posted on August 4, 2020 by Brendon
” ….Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you…..so in Christ, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others…..Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” Romans 12:3b, 5, 9-12
Guest services is the first line of impression that a person can have of a church. Whether it is the parking lot or a shuttle system or a sidewalk greeter. Guest Services has the ability to make or break the experience before it really even gets started.
When approaching the ministry of Guest Services, my mind inherently goes to having someone or a group of people over to my house. Maybe it is the Mary and Martha syndrome that I run into a lot. There was one time where I became so flustered that I started making cookies right as people came in to the house and I was determined to finish them because I needed to have them done….but in reality, we could have done without the cookies at that moment and could have passed on them that week….or we could have just eaten the dough! But the problem that I saw was that I was too busy to even welcome the guests into my house. I was thrown off the rest of the night because I almost felt guilty I was able to welcome them.
There are times on Sunday mornings when we can fall into the same trap. We know that we should be like Mary and sit with Jesus and allow Jesus to speak into our lives, but we end up acting like Martha…running around like a chicken with our heads cut off and never having enough time to stop and breathe and allow Jesus to speak in and through us.
There are a few things that I have learned with Guest Services that are growing as essentials to a Guest Service Experience:
First, Creating a Remarkable Guest Experience – you have heard the phrase, we will do anything short of sin to spread or tell the Gospel of Jesus. I am in the camp that would say – I will do anything short of sin to create a remarkable guest experience for all guests that come to a Sunday service. What that looks like depends on the Sunday. It could be pouring down rain and to create the remarkable guest experience you make sure your shuttles are running in full capacity, maybe it is getting a team of people with Umbrellas that are walking people in to the building. Maybe it is freezing outside – shuttles with warmth are a must, maybe even pulling out some fireplaces or gas heaters on the walk in. Whatever you need to do to create a remarkable guest experience, you do it.
Second, creating a space for Jesus – this one may seem obvious, but a lesson I learned was, in order to allow Jesus to be in the space, you have to make room for him to be there. At an Easter service, we encouraged all of our staff members to be in the lobby, which they should be anyway, but we encouraged all of them to be greeters. We wanted all of them to be out and about welcoming people. The turnout…..was amazing!! However looking back at that easter service, it almost was too many people greeting and there was not enough space for Jesus. Finding and working the balance of greeters and too many people is hard. You want to have as many people as you can welcoming guests and especially new guests, but when you start to flood the system, the system gets clogged and it doesn’t work to its fullest potential. Even in the midst of this pandemic, I am hearing stories from my team about how many people they are able to talk to and how many have identified themselves as new. This is with a skeleton crew. What would it be like if you were able to find the sweet spot and hit that sweet spot for 6 weeks? What a difference maker! Allow Jesus space to join in the conversation and see what can happen.
Third, Create a space where diversity thrives – no, this is not in response to anything that is going on in the political or cultural world. This is just a fact. Our world is more and more diverse. There are more colors and languages and accents than ever walking around. Why would guest services not want to be diverse in people greeting? Its hard. But the bottom line is that the church is not meant for one color or one race or one tongue. The church is designed and meant for all to come and hear the good news of Jesus. The scripture above demonstrates this to us when it talks about the church being many members but one body. It doesn’t limit or specify what a member looks or sounds like, it just says many members. The scripture also tells us to be loving to one another and not putting ourselves higher than anyone else. That is huge in the culture that is created throughout your guest services team. If someone coming in that doesn’t look or sound like you, I would hope and pray that you welcome them with loving and open arms. Just as Jesus would love and welcome you with open arms, we need to be the hands and feet of Jesus to all people.
I am new to this Guest Services realm and would love to learn from you about what you think have been creeping up to being the essentials of your guest services teams!
Let me know.