In this brief blog post, San Diego’s Kaleo Church pastor Drew Monkson outlines his church’s three-stage hospitality program. You may find it a valuable beginning point for a church leadership team, deacon, or elders discussion. Or, invite your whole congregation to review his post and consider how your membership might improve your hospitality program.
Ministry Design: Greeting as Hospitality, Connecting & Ministry …
“We are looking to train our greeters where there will be a ‘front door’ welcoming greeting team and a second greeting team inside near a resource table to meet these people. Our goal is to partner these guests with people in our church …”
The article discusses some of the ways Kaleo Church offers information to newcomers. Notice it’s a 3-stage process and, as pastor Monkson indicates in his reply to a comment on the post, the book (third stage) is delivered to the guest’s home by members of the church. But not until the visitor has come for a second visit, and not without advance permission.
Of course, it is not necessary to be an “evangelical” church to practice good hospitality – but it does seem that the more conservative, more evangelical churches are much better about welcoming visitors into their spiritual home than are mainline Protestants. While mainliners tend to either ignore visitors and newcomers, or latch onto them in a desperate effort to lock in more help to maintain the church’s dwindling ministries, evangelical churches focus on getting to know their guests, in providing non-threatening and non-needy information about the church, and in discovering (over a brief period of time) how the church can serve the needs and concerns of the visitor.
In The Inviting Church, researchers Roy M. Oswald and Speed Leas discuss the results of their study of how mainline churches welcome and assimilate new members. You might find it eye-opening and at times disheartening. However, change begins with an accurate assessment of the situation, and this book will help you see your faith community more clearly as you consider what applies to you and what does not.
Roy Oswald followed up that study by publishing, Your Church More Inviting: A Step-by-Step Guide for In-Church Training, which will give you tips, techniques and action steps for changing your hospitality and assimilation practices – not without some discomfort, but at least without blowing your current membership out of the water.
