Christmas is a time for New Believers and First-time Guests!
It’s true that most of the unchurched in your communities will be more open to the Good News this Christmas Season than any other season of the year. A recent study showed that more than nine of out 10 of the unchurched said they would come to church if they were invited.
But the question is: How are you prepared to reach new people for Christ this Christmas? As a pastor like you, it’s easy to get so caught up in planning our sermons and not think through how we will challenge people to accept Jesus as the Lord of their life and to make our first-time guests feel welcome at our church.
The thinking behind “Greeted, Directed, Treated and Seated” featured on yesterday’s post may be a paradigm shift for you. Until this point, your plan for first-time guests may have been simply to get them through the door and make your impression with the service itself.
While that sounds good in theory, research has shown that you don’t have that luxury.
By the time your service starts, your guests have already made judgments about your environment, interacted with people who may or may not have rubbed them the right way, figured out how to navigate your hallways, and found themselves a seat…more than enough experience with your church for a gut-level impression to have firmly formed.
And once the first impression has been made, you can do very little in the service itself to change it. If they have already formed a negative impression, that impression becomes the lens through which they view everything else over the next hour or so.
Conversely, if you create a “raving fan” in the pre-service, they will engage in the rest of your service with a heightened enthusiasm, which leaves them more open to hearing from God.
In his instructions to the church practitioners at Corinth, Paul encouraged his listeners, “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). Why? Because everything done in preparation for a church service works together to represent God’s character to the unchurched person.
They may not immediately know why they like your church, or why they feel comfortable, but it’s because you’ve done the work to set them at ease before they knew they were coming. You have established an environment that resonates positively with their subconscious mind, before they even evaluate it on a conscious level.
Something in them connects with the smile they’ve been offered. They feel relief that they don’t have to ask for directions to the restroom. They feel loved by the donuts and coffee you’ve made available to them. They appreciate the seat you’ve provided.
In those first seven minutes, all of these things work together to create an impression that will open the future door of opportunity for you to minister in their lives in a truly meaningful way. With a strong pre-service in place, seven minutes is all you need to show your guests just how much you care about them and want them back!
For more details on how to fully integrate the principles of “Greated, Directed, Treated, and Seated” into your assimilation system, click here to download a FREE copy of my e-book, “How to Make a Great First-Time Guest Impression!”
Your partner in ministry,
Nelson
P.S. Discover the three most common mistakes churches make in connecting new people AND how you can avoid them!
Join me for The Top 3 Assimilation Mistakes Webinar this week. In this FREE one-hour webinar, you will discover the three most common mistakes churches make in connecting new people AND how you can avoid them!
Click here to register for the date and time most convenient for you!
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