Guest Services Gathering – Posted on November 16, 2022 by Brendon
Mark 10:45 Jesus says – “ For even the son of man did not come to be serve d but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.”
John 13:34-35, Jesus says “ A new commandment I give to you, love one another as I have loved you, you must also love one another. BY THIS, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Paul talks about the church in scripture as being a body. One that is made up of may parts and all the parts have a purpose in making the body move, hopefully in a forward motion. As a Guest Services team, we are all a part of the body of Christ and we all have a part and purpose in making the church move.
If you are part of the parking team, you are the first line of experience for all of our guests. You are the first ones that will be able to smile to all of our new guests. You are the ones that take the edge off of where to park or where to go.
Golf carts, The Holy Rollers, you provide another experience touch when you drive those carts around the parking lot bringing people to the entrance doors. You provide a safe and easy environment for adults and kids alike to easily get to the building all the while smiling and having fun!
Greeters! You set the stage for what every guest will experience when coming into the building. Your warm and friendly smiles and hello/good morning make walls come down, especially for our new guests! You provide a safe experience touch that allows people to breathe easy as they come into the building.
Guest Central, you are the hub for all guests. And even when it is a little slow and may seem like you do more standing than you do talking, in the moments when a new family comes in and asks what the heck to do with their kids….you are there to greet them and walk them to Harvester Kids or the cafe or maybe even where the bathroom is.
Communion servers, we may not be serving communion by passing trays like we have in the past, but you are part of potentially the most important part of the service as a whole. As much as singing and listening to the word preached, you provide a welcoming face for those that are going to remember the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus each and every week. And for those that clean up every service, you are providing a clean and put together space for all of our guests. Picking up the communion cups is definitely a role that is unseen, but you make a world of a difference. I like to think of it this way….if you walked into a movie theatre and were sitting down to a movie that you have been looking forward too and you sit down and have to walk over a pilled bag of popcorn and a couple of candy wrappers and soda spilled in your seat…..it wouldn’t be the best experience it could be.
Section Hosts, you are the hosts of the worship center. Your role is to help guests find seats and make it as easy as possible for them to enter into a worship space. You are also making connections and relationships with these guests that will mean more to them than you may ever know. Just two weeks ago, a section host brought back some new guests that she had met the week prior! You provide a service that is necessary and incredibly helpful for all guests when the lights go down in the room.
Living Room, this is the one space we invite every single new guest. Most churches don’t exactly know where to invite their new guests to and some preach this exact thought. The Living Room is where new guests move from being an acquaintance to a friend. There are two many stories of people that go into the living room nervous and afraid and coming out breathing a sign of relief. The connections made in the Living Room are some that will shape whether or not a new guest will find a home here at Harvester.
First Aid, you guys are the silent team that no one really ever sees, unless something happens, then you are in the middle of everything! You quietly and in anticipation wait for anything to come your way and whatever that might be, you are willing to help out. Trust me, at some point I know I am going to hear about someone bleeding all over the new renovation of Harvester Kids and its going to be my child……..I will breathe easy knowing who is in that room and what your hearts are about keeping people safe whether on a sunday or an event.
All of these teams have a place in making the Guest Experience a huge success!
A few months ago, we hired a new Local Outreach Pastor, Carissa Figgins, she brought with her a wealth of knowledge and an uncanny connection to St Charles county in a way that I could not even imagine. However she also brought the desire to see people encounter Jesus through serving. She introduced a book that we read as a team……aka I read about a 1/3 of it. But in the book it asked two questions:
What do you WANT to be KNOWN FOR? and What ARE you KNOWN FOR?
The difference in those answers could be the reason that an organization or maybe you as an individual could be missing something or in plain language, failing. Because if what you want to be known for, doesn’t match up with what you are known for…..then there is a disconnect somewhere in the organization or team or person.
So to ask this question of a Guest Services team, what do we want to be KNOWN For…….The answer:
TO BE THE MOST WELCOMING CHURCH ANYONE CAN EXPERIENCE
We see above that Jesus came to serve and not be served and also that by the love we show others, people will know that we are Jesus disciples. As a guest services team, this means the way we welcome each and every guest, old or new, should reflect the love we have for Jesus and the love Jesus has for every guest we encounter. This is what we should be known for.
I know, thats a great phrase and a great thought…..but How do we know if we are being sucessful or how do we know that we are being the most welcoming church anyone can experience…….by a measuring number.
1750 New Guests in 2023.
That is a large number! But it is one that is attainable as we venture into the new year. We will hopefully welcome and connect with close to 1300 new guests by the end of 2022 and I know that we have had more new guests come through our doors that have not made themselves known to us. But with the number above, what it will hopefully do is create an eyesight that looks and seeks out those that seem new or maybe just look lost. When we begin to shift our eye sight from our normal people to all those that come through the doors, our eyes start to see the new faces that we can introduce ourselves too.
Be Bold when you are parking. Be Bold when you are driving the golf carts. Be Bold when you are greeting. Be Bold when you have someone come to Guest Central. Be Bold when you are serving communion. Be Bold when you are helping someone sit in your section. Be Bold when you are speaking with someone in the Living Room. Be Bold when you are watching for injuries.
What does this mean for each one of us as individuals not just a team???
It means that all of us are Ambassadors for Jesus. As we step into a serving team, we are now being the hands and feet of Jesus which means we are ambassadors for Him. Do not ever think you are in a lowly spot or a lowly position. All the positions that you fill are important to the body of Christ and all of your have the ability and power to help lead someone to find and follow Jesus.
It means, all of us have to be recruiters. Because as we continue to see and identify more and more new guests, we will need more and more hearts to meet theirs. So we are going to be focussing on growing our teams so that we can continue to add and make more room for more Guest Services team members.
It also means that we are going to create more space. Starting January 8th, we will be moving to 3 services on Sunday mornings. 8am, 9:30am and 11am. This will allow us to create more space in the prime service times and hopefully begin to see more and more guests come into our building.
Guest Services is a team. A team built by multiple teams and hundreds of people. Together we can be a light in the world that is full of darkness and craziness.