Who's Coming to Salem?
A woman called and made an appointment to see me. She told me she had moved to Cedar Rapids and had visited five churches. Out of those five visits, only once did people at the church speak to her. That one church was Salem. I was saddened to hear of her experience at the other congregations. I was pleased and a little relieved to hear that she experienced at Salem what so many do: a warm and hospitable welcome. This simple habit of intentionally speaking to others at church cannot be overestimated.
I told her what I’ve shared many times. When I first arrived at Salem, the leaders told me that Salem is a very friendly, warm and caring congregation. I thought to myself, “Okay, well, we’ll see.” After all, there are a lot of congregations that consider themselves to be warm and friendly when in fact, not so much. But it turned out that Salem is exactly that. Over and over again, guests come and tell me they do feel warmly welcomed. They do feel at home. It is part of the Salem DNA.
I know it continues because the people of Salem are intentional about connecting with others. I see members reach out and speak to people they don’t know. I see members welcome others and begin to build relationships. And the guests keep telling me about it.
We have a new facility that will be finished in a few months. The sanctuary will seat about 250. The rule of thumb is that a space feels full at 80% capacity. That means we can seat about 200 regularly. Of course, we’ll be able to seat 250 or more for single events, but probably not on a regular basis. We’ve learned that people just don’t like to be crammed into a space. With the 80% rule, we can host about 400 people in our two services in our new sanctuary. Currently we average a little less than 200 for both services. We’ll have a lot of space for growth! In fact, we can grow 100% before we even add another worship service. Adding a third service would give us space for 600 people regularly.
The point is, we have a lot of room for growth. In order to grow, though, we need to do two things very well. We need to invite others and we need to welcome them as guests.
There are two ways to invite people to Salem: personal invitation (face-to-face, email, phone) and public announcement (direct mail, newspaper, door hanger). Personal invitations are much more fruitful with a 10-25% response rate. Public announcements garner less than a 2% response. We may do some public announcements, but we want to focus on personal invitations.
Our vision is to connect people, build community, and transform lives through Jesus. The first step is inviting people we already know who don’t have a church home. All of us. It’s as simple as saying, “Come and see what’s happing at Salem.” That’s what Jesus said to his first followers and what they said to the people they invited. Just come and see.
We are going to continue receiving new people. When we do, we want to treat them as guests. We want to give them the warm and friendly welcome for which Salem is known.
The ten minutes following worship are often the most important for a guest. They will determine just how friendly we are during that time. How? Simply by the number of people who talk to them. This simple habit of intentionally speaking to others at church cannot be overestimated.
Comments
Post a Comment