Has your church ever planned a really big event, one in which you hoped a bunch of visitors would show up? Then a few of them actually show up, and now you’re not so sure the show you’re putting on will live up to their expectations? So you just try to welcome them the best you can and hope, for the love of all that is holy, that the preacher doesn’t get that crazy twitch he always gets.

That’s a little what I feel like today – my first entry since welcoming a few new readers from ‘Stuff Christians Like.’

Churches have tried all sorts of ways to properly welcome church visitors and make sure they come back. One of my seminary professors told us about how when he was pastoring, he took a church visitor, who just happened to be the president of the local bank to Taco Bell after church.

Yes, Taco Bell.

After their meal and conversation, the banker confessed that he had never eaten at Taco Bell. It wasn’t the meal that impressed him, but the gesture of the pastor. That banker became an attending, participating, tithing member for decades after that day. For a $5 taco lunch.

These days, visitors are expecting a lot more than the old handshake and ‘Glad to meet you.’ You need to really make an impression that will stick and make them come back for more! Take these steps, and you’ll never have to worry about visitors coming back.

Proven Ways to Get Visitors to Come Back to Church

Give Them a Snake: So you walk into the door of a church, and the church has a normal name. It isn’t called ‘Holy God Almighty Snake-Handlers Church,’ so you figure you won’t be touching any snakes. At the worst, you’ll have to touch someone’s hand. But then, as you walk in, dear brother Rufus smiles, hands you your bulletin, and your cobra.

And you say, “Snakes…Why did it have to be snakes?”

I’ve been told by a former pastor of a snake-handling church that the trick is the snakes are refrigerated. It makes the snakes calm and cuddly! They don’t want to bite anyone – they just want to get your body warmth. So if you’re handed a cold snake – you’ve got it made in the shade. If they hand you a hot snake…run.

Make Sure They Stand Up and Are Counted: If someone invited a visitor to church, they want credit. If you stand up as a visitor and the place is half visitors, you’ve shown up on ‘pack a pew’ Sunday. You were invited to church because your friend is competing with all the other church families for a new crock pot, to show off at the next potluck. It’s an annual clash of the titans, and there will be only one victor, and a lot of spurned losers. You have a small but integral part to play in this epic and perinnial war.

Speaking of which, it would be pretty sweet to have a ‘Church of No People’ crock pot sitting on my kitchen counter…hmmm…

Sell Them a Used Car: So I thought I was going to church, but the greeter in the plaid sport coat was talking so fast about getting me plugged in, signed up, and committed for life before I had even sat down in the sanctuary for one worship service. Looking back, it did seem to be an inordinate amount of paper work, just to go to church. Then he handed me the keys to a ‘98 Toyota. Well, maybe not that last part, but the rest is true, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had unwittingly purchased a Toyota.

Yell at Them as Soon as They Walk in the Door: This isn’t proven in church, but it has been proven at other venues. For example, Kansas City is a barbecue town. And one of our home-grown barbecue chains has a signature style. You walk in, get in line, which moves very quickly, and pretty much have to know what you’re going to order already. Because at the end of the line, a very large woman awaits to shout, “HI, MAY I HELLLLP YOU?!” And sonny, you’d better know if this woman can help you or not right away. The same thing would work great in church. Unsuspecting visitor walks in, big person shouts at them. Those visitors better know why they’re there, and quick! If they don’t know they’re at church for Jesus, then step aside, there are people HUNGRY for the Word of God!

Make Them Wear a Paper Hat: Not kidding. This is very real in at least one church somewhere far away, and no I cannot explain it. Newspaper…folded…easy to identify visitors…can’t…make…sense! But maybe it works for them. Maybe it’s such a strange place that people go there for the experience of wearing a paper hat and seeing the freak show – like a circus!

“Hey kids, we’re gonna go to the crazy church! Put on your paper hats!”

“Yipeeeee!”

And if none of those work, just get them baptized and on the role books on the first Sunday, and then it won’t matter if they never show up again.

How does your church pack in the visitors and keep them coming back for more? Snakes? Toyotas? Hats? Tacos? What methods do our churches need to implement?

As 2009 approaches, many people around American churches are finding ways to improve their programs. Here are a few of the highlights:

The Preschool Sunday School Teacher, First Christian Church
Resolution: Reduce amount of glitter lost by child ingestion by 10%.

The VBS Coordinator, Hope Bible Church
Resolution: This year’s VBS will be the best ever, thanks to a moon jump, dinosaurs, a firetruck and loads of donated popsicles.

The VBS Volunteers, Hope Bible Church
Resolution: Find a way to be absent on the day the firetruck shows up.

The Worship Leader, Second Street Worship Center
Resolution: Be more emotional, awe-inspiring and sexy, if that’s possible.

The Youth Leader, Church of the Resurrection
Resolution: Remember that games where hormonal teenagers are touching each other or passing objects to one another with their faces is mildly suggestive and asking for trouble, especially at a lock-in.

The Senior High Boys, Church of the Resurrection
Resolution: Sneak away during next lock-in’s ‘new and less-suggestive’ games in order to make out with girls.

The Recently Dumped Young Man, Harvest Church
Resolution: Never ever bring up Joshua Harris with any girlfriend again.

The Young Lady Who Recently Kissed Dating Good-bye, Harvest Church
Resolution: Read The Shack. Realize I already have a boyfriend in Jesus and have no use for lesser men.

The Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church
Resolution: Use the word ‘postmodern’ a lot more. Also, continue to try to figure out what it means.

The Pastor’s Wife, Grace Episcopal Church
Resolution: Stop bringing old serving spoons from home to potluck dinners, switching them with others’ fancier serving spoons.

The Greeter, New Life Family Center
Resolution: More bear hugs.

The Usher, First Assembly of God
Resolution: Stop swirling the contents of the offering plate during offertory prayer.

That Weird Kid Whose Sheep Costume Exposed His Bum at this Year’s Christmas Pagaent, Holy Trinity Catholic Church
Resolution: Don’t end up a sheep at next year’s pagaent, no matter what.

The President of the Ladies’ Bake Sale Committee, Crossroads Baptist Church
Resolution: Make people forget the Methodists even have a bake sale coming up a week after ours.

The Church Treasurer, First United Methodist Church
Resolution: Get the Baptists to bail us out.

*Very scientific study conducted by me.

From the sound of it, many of you have sworn off New Year’s resolutions? Are there any resolutions that should be made around your church?

Preacher, that sermon was just awful!

Are you a shy person? Do you have a hard time speaking to others? I sure used to be. Maybe your interpersonal skills are okay, but you have a hard time speaking in front of a group. That describes 98% of people, regardless of the size of the group. You probably will decline an invitation to pray in front of a group. After all, what would you say? And certainties beyond all certainties, you would never give a sermon in front of your church. Just out of the question!

I don’t need any documentation to know that even after decades of listening to sermons and hearing literally hundreds of prayers spoken by pastors, 98% of people feel incapable of public praying or speaking. Were all of these prayers and sermons delivered by seminary trained pastors amazing, earth shattering, bring-fire-down-from-heaven oratories? No, not even a fraction of them. Most were probably pretty mediocre. Yet the recipients of those prayers and homilies feel they are incapable, not just of doing it better, but doing it at all!

Chances are your pastor has some patterns in his speech, some pet phrases he likes to use. If someone were to just recite those phrases at random, and read a scripture verse, it could likely be mistaken for a sermon!

What is the fear? That you would be laughed at? That God would be dismayed at your lousy abilities? That your terrible sermon would actually influence an audience member to renounce his faith? I guarantee the scenario at the beginning of my post has never happened. And if you got up to preach, it certainly would not happen to you.

I’ve written before about an English pastor from the 1800s before – Charles Spurgeon, a fascinating person, and a hero to me. I won’t belabor you with the details of his life, that’s what Wikipedia is for. What’s important today is that he preached to 10 million people. This was at a time when London had 2 million people. There were barely 10 million in the entire nation! This was in great halls with no microphones at all. He was the most famous man in all of England, save the royal family. His impact on the church cannot be overstated.

On the evening of Jan 6, 1850 as a boy of 15, he was walking to church. The heavy snow convinced him to not walk all the way to his church. He rather turned around to a Methodist church which he had not attended before. The snow had resulted in a very small crowd – maybe a dozen. Among those absent was the preacher!

What were the people to do? They couldn’t have church without the preacher! Someone to walk them through the ritual they all knew by heart! Oh dear! What are these laypeople to do?

So a layman walked to the pulpit. He had not prepared a sermon, but his heart was prepared. He opened his Bible to Isaiah 45:22 and spoke, plainly and honestly from his heart and nothing more. It probably was not a long message. He probably did not have much in the way of ‘illustrations.’ He was probably not dynamic or funny. Perhaps his voice cracked, or he lost his train of thought once, or he paced in nervousness. It was just a message he had scribbled out in his heart.

Now get this,

Young Charles had attended church all his life, but his heart had not been opened to the truth of Christ until that night. He was converted that night by the humble oratorcle offering of an untrained, unprepared layman, who probably thought himself the most unqualified person to speak at all.

Yet it was that layman’s bravery and honesty which opened a heart that no polished sermon had ever been able to. Because that man stood up that night, Spurgeon evangelized the whole of England and beyond. That man could not have known what God would use that little sermon to do. If God had told him, he’d have chickened out! Converting the most important evanglist of our generation is waaaaay too important for you to entrust to me!

I want to shake people and say ‘You are qualified! Get up there and tell us how it is! Tell us about Jesus!’ Maybe you’ll never give a sermon from a pulpit. That’s fine. But there are lots of different types of sermons – they’re just disguised as other things!

What keeps you in your seat?

It seems these days that pastor’s tenures are becoming shorter and shorter. The career path of a preacher looks quite a lot like any businessman. In other words, they hop around every three to five years, hopefully to a bigger church with more staff and better perks. Then maybe they’ll stay for a ten year stretch at the so called ‘I Finally Made It’ church. Then they retire.

A century ago, pastor’s tenures were quite different. Preachers might stay for a decade, two, or even their entire career. Then they retired or died. Amazing how things change. Consider the dynamics that are at work:

A pastor with a long tenure cannot so easily recycle sermons.

A pastor with a long tenure gains more and more influence with his people as the years pass.

A pastor following the short tenure of his predecessor has an easier time ‘breaking in’ the church to his style.

A pastor following the long tenure of his predecessor has to deal with blue haired old ladies squawking at him about how ‘I’ve been here 63 years, and we’ve never done it like that before!’

A short-term pastor is less attached to the people, and vice verse. He is more like a hired friend than a genuine part of the community.

A long term pastor sometimes has to work harder to keep himself and his people interested in the ministry. Familiarity, it is said, often times breeds contempt.

At some point, a pastor has been at his church long enough and is popular enough that if he were to leave for another church in town, a significant number of people would follow him…Well, maybe. Or everyone is glad to be rid of him.

Just some thoughts to consider in an age of ‘serial’ pastorates. Perhaps your minister has stuck with your church for a long time. Maybe he passed by other ‘better’ opportunities to follow his calling at your church. Do you feel ‘called’ to stay at your secular job, passing over promotions? Would you be hurt or surprised if your pastor left for a ‘better’ church? If you like your pastor, when was the last time you told him so? Doing something about that question may help your pastor in those hours of temptation when another church is looking like an awfully sweet calling.

Things to do before the age of 30:

1. Openly despise hymns as being rote, unspiritual relics of the dark ages.
2. Insist on having ‘multi-sensory’ worship.
3. Learn what on earth ‘postmodern,’ ‘paradigm,’ and ‘organic’ refer to in a church setting.
4. Drop said words into conversation, regardless of personal understanding of such words, or their relevance. Quote someone like Brian McLaren.
5. Accuse older generation of having lost its ‘first love.’
6. Demonstrate my love of Jesus in a way that is attractive to people my own age, in a way that old people cannot replicate. Worship is now ‘postmodern,’ ‘organic,’ and a new ‘paradigm.’

Things to do between the ages of 30-60:

1. Do not allow young people to take over musical worship. Compromise with a ‘medley’ of praise choruses at the start of worship.
2. Insist that Sunday still be called a ‘worship service.’ It is not a ‘gathering.’ Be suspicious of young people who suggest new and scary changes to the worship format.
3. Reject the need to learn what young people are talking about when they use strange words. Quote C.S. Lewis.
4. Drop words into conversation despite their outdatedness, and the fact that no one understands what I’m talking about.
5. Accuse young generation of living life facetiously and not knowing what truly loving Jesus means.
6. Demonstrate love for Jesus by quietly participating in worship, prayer, tithing, and missions without anyone ever seeing it or giving you credit.

Things to do after the age of 60:

1. Squawk at the ‘new’ pastor at least once a month (who has been there for 10 years) about how ‘I’ve been here for 62 years, and we’ve never done it like that before!’
2. Insist that the punk with the guitar go home, that ugly white screen be taken down, the hymnals be put back in their place, and the pastor put on a tie, for heavens’ sakes.
3. Talk incessantly about the ‘good old days’ and how the young generation is going to hell. Quote D.L. Moody.
4. Change the topic to something prior to my 30th birthday whenever someone begins discussing a topic I find disinteresting.
5. Remind everyone about how mine was the ‘greatest generation’ and no other will live up to its greatness.
6. Demonstrate my love for Jesus by sitting quietly in church though I can’t hear a thing being spoken.

Don’t throw that out! Jesus needs it!

In the book of Malachi, God is ticked because people are ‘robbing him.’ They bring their sickly, gross animals to be sacrificed while they keep the good ones for themselves. The sacrifices have ‘blemishes.’ They aren’t the peoples’ best – they are the leftovers that they’d rather not have anyway. And then they wonder why God holds back his blessings. It’s great stuff.

A lot of churches have this problem today. Most churches are filled with ‘blemished’ sacrifices – things that people want out of their house because it’s now junk, so they figure the church can use it. Most people aren’t donating used pianos either. It’s cruddy stained furniture that’s ‘good enough’ for the youth group to use. They bring worn out Christmas decorations ‘good enough’ for the church foyer. They donate old dishes ‘good enough’ for God’s people to eat off of. They toss old books, 8 tracks, and VHSs into the church library. Anything – old coffeepots, kitchen utensils, clothing ‘good enough’ for the church.

We take up the offering and pray that God will bless and multiply our gifts, but do we really want God to multiply our gifts if they’re just a bunch of useless garbage that you want to get out of your house? Why on earth, if you’re so eager to get that hideous old chair out of your house, would you want to see it every Sunday in God’s house?

Next time you’re thinking of donating some old junk to the church, go ahead and clean out your fridge, and toss that stuff in the pile for donation too.

Mmmm! Time to make my famous church potluck surprise!

UPDATE: As a follow up to my last post, a question I’ve heard and read asked by others: what kind of toilet paper is in your bathroom at home? Perhaps it has a baby on the package, or some cuddly bears. What kind of soap is on your sink? Is it a pump? Does it come out as a foamy fragrant puff of goodness?

Now what kind of toilet paper is in your church? Go on and check. Does it look like it came from Sam’s or Costco – some kind of butcher paper-like product with no trace of babies, bears, or any sort of ‘quilting?’ What about the soap? A toxic pink liquid that looks as if its been cut by half with water?

It’s a simple point – maybe you don’t have fancy products in your house, but when you have guests, you usually clean the place up and put out the best of what you have. What does it say to your guests in church when the bathrooms are stocked with the cheapest products, things that many people wouldn’t put up with in their own homes – another example of ‘good enough.’ I actually was told a story of a man who visited a church once, then again six months later – and never again. The reason? His first visit, he found a crack in the bathroom mirror. Six months later? You guessed it. No one had bothered to fix the crack. And that was the impression he had of how that church treated God.