Last week I was in Louisiana, working with congregations across the state and preparing for the Fall Leadership Gathering in New Orleans. On Wednesday morning I found myself having a conversation with the head of housekeeping at the motel where I had spent the night.
She told me she was being moved to another location next week where she was going to have fire the housekeeping staff and hire a new one. She explained that they had heard too many reports about the shabby conditions of that motel and that they had proof – over 200 pictures – that were taken by “silent shoppers” who had been sent to investigate the reports.
The first time I ever heard about “silent shoppers” was when I read Sam Walton’s autobiography. He made a habit of personally checking out the competition, beginning in his earliest years with his Ben Franklin store. He wanted to know everything from product selection to display to pricing to the customer experience in the store. He wanted to be the best at what he was doing and he was willing to go to any length to get there.
Which reminded me of something that I had heard a couple of weeks ago.
Someone wrote to me who had tried out a new congregation on a Sunday morning. He reported back that he appreciated the worship space – full of light and warmth – the hospitality of the people and the spirit of worship. He said the sermon was good, faithful to the text and delivered with a measure of passion. He enjoyed the full breakfast that was offered after worship. And then, on Tuesday morning, he received a nice card in the mail thanking him for his presence in worship and encouraging him to return.
He said it was a welcome change from the other congregation which he had attended a number of times. There he found that he was largely ignored before and after worship, the people seemed listless in worship, the sermon lacked fire, and, although he had filled out a visitor card at least three different times, he never heard anything back from the congregation.
Simple question: Which church would you join?
Now we all know the truth. We can’t gain an adequate understanding of the ministry of a congregation based on attending one or two worship services. There is much more to the depth and breadth of ministry than that. But the simple fact is that we only get one chance to make a first impression. People today aren’t going to give us the benefit of the doubt, there are too many options available to them and the days of denominational loyalty are long long gone.
The atmosphere and practices of Sunday morning hospitality are more important today than they have ever been when it comes to making a connection with new people. Great hospitality doesn’t just happen, we have to work at it.
Consider the congregation where my friend had a great experience.
They have spent a large amount of money in creating a worship environment that is bright, warm and beautiful. They have trained their greeters and ushers well. They plan worship with some acknowledgement that visitors might be present. They do the hard organizational work to provide something special – a full breakfast after worship. They have a visitor communication card in the seats that were done well enough that a visitor actually filled one out. They have the kind of record-keeping system in place that the pastor and the church office are informed about the attendance of a visitor and then they have a follow-up plan in place that they use.
In short, they are prepared to receive visitors. And because they are prepared to receive them, God just might send some their way.
There is a whole lot more to it, of course. Congregations need to be as attentive to what it takes to increase the number of new people who come and visit on a Sunday morning. And there needs to be real, effective and relevant ministry happening throughout the week to retain people. Sunday morning hospitality is one piece of the puzzle but it is a crucial piece.
One of the back-burner ideas that float around in my brain is the creation of a network of Sunday morning “secret shoppers” who could attend, experience, evaluate and then offer feedback about their experience in worship. Certainly this would require both curiosity and humility on the part of the congregation that would invite “secret shoppers” into their midst. It would also require an agreed upon evaluation tool that would measure what really matters in creating the kind of Sunday morning experience that encourages visitors to return. But that would not be at all difficult to do. Like my friend’s report back to me, we already know much about what works and what doesn’t.
But first we would have to ask the deeper question: If a motel chain cares enough about customer service, or a retailer cares enough about being a learning organization in a competitive environment, what does it say about a Christian congregation that doesn’t view or shape their own Sunday morning experience from the point of view of a visitor? It says we don’t care.
Yet we DO care. We just don’t always act like it. We can do better.
Want to talk more about a Sunday morning evaluation process? Write to me at revkerry@gmail.com
