Transcription
Welcome to Pastorpedia. I'm New Larson. We're going to be joined by Jim Brown and Jeff Bog, and I want to talk—we want to talk—about first impressions. What's yours? I hope you're a Notre Dame fan. You know, when people walk in a church, or you see this, they get first impressions.
Colleges say—listen to this—colleges say that a person, a kid looking at a college, decides within 20 minutes if he's going to go there or not. So they always take them to the student center or the very nice building. Some people decide if they're coming back to church by how people receive them when they come and their first impressions. Jim Brown from Goan, you do a great job there, and I know you care about this area. How does—how do first impressions fit with our general mission to please Christ and win others?
Well, a lot of areas. One comes to mind: Whatever you do, work as though you're working for the Lord. And this is an area Colossians 3:23 tells us uh to do that. And even in first impressions, we tell our our guys and our gals that are part of first impressions ministry, and we tell our people that you might be the very reason—you might be the first reason—that someone would consider accepting Christ as their lord and savior. You—you might be that person. It's clearly part of the mission. If they—if they dare to come to church and don't get received well, they may never come back.
Absolutely. And we—we've seen that happen where the first impression wasn't good, and it made us amp up our first impression. And so—so it really does make a difference how many people come to our church and say, "Nobody said hello." I mean, I've been a mystery shopper a couple of times since I left the chapel, and uh, I go into a church and nobody says hello, and I'm not looking scary. I'm looking around and I start greeting people because they need to do it. Do you want me to turn the Notre Dame—you need a Marilyn TPS hat. That's what you need. I'm sorry. They'll make our audience much happier.
What are some basics about first impressions in your mind? What some things every church needs to have? Uh, friendly—be friendly. Uh, I learned this from you in a class that I took years ago. Uh, put a smile on your face. And let me just speak to pastors out there: Quit looking so mean in the pulpit. Uh, the way your expression comes across, we determine whether or not someone will come back. Be helpful. Don't point—tell people where to go. Uh, yeah, "over that way," if they've never been there. Put great signage in your building—show where the children's ministries are, the nurseries are, and the restrooms are. And don't point—walk with the person. Just be helpful. Be very—said Trader Joe the other day, I—I don't even—what to do in a food store, and I asked a guy, and I knew what I had to get. He said, "Let me show you." I mean, he knows—he's to walk with me. And love—greeters are great, but sometimes they don't—they just talk to each other, or ushers are notorious for talking to each other and kind of giving out a—bullet. Yeah.
Just picture yourself going into a place you've never been before for the very first time. It's new to you. It's packed with people that you don't know—20, 30, 50, 100, 200,000, whatever it is—and you're walking into a strange place. You've never been there. Imagine you walking in there and no one talks to you, no one points the direction or shows you where to sit, no one gives you a chance to shake your hand. Imagine going there and then leaving this place that's supposed to be the—have the love of Christ in it, and no one ever touches you with the love of Christ. You'll never come back—never come back.
One of the things that—that helped us at the chapel—we worked at it—but is three minutes after the service is over, we had a rule among leaders: Don't talk to anybody you know for three minutes after the service. Too—is a time to greet people and look around. Before the service, they're in a hurry, or, "Where do I take our child?" or that kind of thing. But you lead it from up front. Your joy permeates, doesn't it?
Absolutely. It starts from the stage. Uh, they look at you. If—if they don't see the joy of the Lord in you, you have to give them a reason to come back. I wouldn't say this—new—not even just for the Sunday morning services, um, but if you have an event, such as a retreat or an outing—where an event where you're bringing someone that's um unconvinced, unsaved, looking, seeking—sometimes we just think about the Sunday morning first impression. It's these um extracurricular events that you do too. I often say to our guys before the event starts, "Get out of your holy huddles. You already know each other. Look for people that you don't know. Go talk to them. Spread—move." And so I—I go after them, especially if it's guys. I say, "Guys, you know each other. Go talk to someone you don't know." We work hard even in those settings.
CU often—it's those settings that are the first entry point for people coming into your church too. Oh yeah. Many leaders don't see each other from Sunday to Sunday or event to event, so they're talking to each other. And I understand that, but part of what they're leading is grace and love to the new people. You guys—and we talk—you don't talk about on Sunday morning as much as behind the scenes in your huddles of leaders and with staff. And don't beat them up either, uh, when you're—when they're there. Uh, they don't necessarily want—they want you to know that they're there, but you don't have to point them out. Um, let them know that they're—visor—by someone else touching them, just out of a gesture of love. Yeah. Don't make them stand up in your services. Well, we always had guests stand and say what sin are you grappling with, and that helped them feel at home. I bet they came back too, didn't they?
Oh yeah. Here's a big one for—we're all—all three of us have a long list of ideas on the printed Pastorpedia. What's your role as pastor? Let's hit ourselves and pastor's head on—what's—what's our role? What some of the things—it's amazing if you just walk out with your people before and after service—service. If you—if you—I mean, you have an idea who might be a visitor—if you shake a hand. I have—I walk out with people often, and I'm walking with the crowd as they're leaving, and I'll put my hand on their back and say, "Hey, I hope you have a good day." I've had people turn around and in shock because I just spoke to them. They never met me, but I'm walking with them and engaging them in conversation. It's amazing. And then I'll even ask them, "Hey, is there anything I can pray for you with—you about?" I've prayed with visitors—walking with them—touch them—greet them—smile—you know—rub elbows with them—get with your people.
Indeed. I think in a loving way, with a smile, we should demand it of our staff and highly requested or strongly requested of our—our board and our other leaders because, again, they want to talk to each other. I understand that—"Are you going to the game Friday?" All that stuff. This is the one day—the one day—Sunday or events that they come see us, and we're hiding in the prayer room or—or talking to each other. It's huge what the pastors—and we set—I know you do this well—you set a mood up front of joy and as you welcome them—whoever does that. Yeah. And—and also do things with excellence. Doesn't matter what size you are—what—doesn't matter what kind of resource you have—do everything as well as you can with excellence. Don't be sloppy in—in whatever you do, and people notice that. If they see that you're handling—as they would say—God's work in an excellent way, that's important even to a visitor. So that means you're going to handle them in an excellent way. So do things with excellence—even on—no matter what size.
Absolutely. We—uh—there's some steps that we'd send you from CE that have the different groups too—uh—first—first impressions groups—membership class—meet the pastors. There's four or five steps where you need a manager who's a volunteer, but somebody on staff who gives vision to it. There are events where we can catch people, and they don't all sign a card—hard—or come to a reception. No. Okay. Thanks for thinking about this—first impressions. We hope your impression of us is that we care about churches and pastors. We really do. Jeff's going to add some thoughts on first impressions. Thank you very, very much. Please read the—the printed material. We wrote it with a smile.
The—the part of—of this topic that I thought I would tackle on this video is how does this fit with the mission, and then what—what's the big mindset—big picture mindset—that needs to be a part of first impressions at the church? Uh, in my view, first impressions fits with the mission in that it's a front porch for evangelism opportunities. So all the studies show that uh people form their view of the church within seconds of stepping onto the property of the church building, and that the number one emotion separately associated with going to a new church is fear. So I look—and I—I'm going to equate both those things to God. You—you would have come to church because you had a problem and thought maybe God could be a solution to that problem. Therefore, if I can make that path clearer, or if we can alleviate that fear in some way, we're going to do whatever we can do—whether it's a cup of coffee or mowing the grass or helping your kids get registered—we want to be a part of—of overcoming that so that your path to Christ is unencumbered and you can connect with him as well as you can.
Now, the big picture mindset that comes with that for me is actually a love for the lost. So when I—when I look at our congregation and we think about why would we paint the building or why would we have coffee or why is—why is it matter if the—if the landscaping looks good? All of those things are opportunities for us to break down barriers so—so that people looking for Christ don't have to cross those hurdles as well. And I—I have found over the years that as—as evangelism has become the culture of our church that when we tie all that back together with a first impressions mindset that we're not trying to impress anybody, we're not trying to have a holy temple that people come into. We just want to remove any barrier we can get a hold of and yet think out of someone's way so that when they come to church they're actually dealing with the gospel itself and who Christ is and who Christ is to them. And so when we've been able to say that, our folks have been unbelievably flexible about going to a different service, about changes, about working on the building in appropriate ways and—uh—because they have that bigger motivation that this is—this is a way that we can help someone—no—and follow Jesus. So I think first impressions is a huge thing. I think it's something that needs to be—have a lot of attention paid to it, and I think the big overarching mindset is we're making someone's path to God as easy as we can make it, and that's what motivates us to do these little things in the process.