Pastors and church leaders get into ministry because they want to help people, not because they want to run some small business. However, if churches don’t keep an eye on the business side of running their ministry, those issues can overtake the ministry and cause it to implode. I’ve seen too many good ministries mess up the […]

Thanks so much for listening in today on the unSeminary podcast. It’s so great to have you joining us as we talk with Greg Atkinson.

Greg has joined us on the unSeminary podcast twice before, and we’re happy to have him with us for a third time.

Today we’re talking with Greg about first impressions. He’s just released a new book called Secrets of a Secret Shopper, which is a great resource on how churches can improve their first impressions with visitors. Greg has been working as a secret shopper among churches for several years and helps them find ways to improve their first impression.

* Welcoming the newcomer is a biblical command. // Greg did a study on hospitality in the bible, which begins in Leviticus when we are urged to welcome the stranger. It then continues into the New Testament with Jesus’ teachings. Hospitality is a biblical requirement for all pastors and elders as Greg notes in 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:7,8. In the bible the person who is called a stranger would be the same person who is a first-time guest or newcomer in today’s churches. So the first thing a church should do is be hospitable to the newcomers and make them feel welcome. Greg notes that many new people may have been away from church for a long time, or have never ever attended: “We have the amazing privilege and opportunity to welcome guests as they come, remove barriers and distractions and help people that are skeptical, nervous, uneasy…”

* Have a welcoming web presence. // The first thing Greg does as a secret shopper is to evaluate a church’s online presence. This means visiting their website, Facebook page, or any other social media they may use. He looks for things that display the identity of the church, which includes photos and information about events. He works with those churches on ways to increase their web presence and make their websites draw people in.

* It begins in the parking lot. // When Greg visits a church, he says a welcoming atmosphere begins in the parking lot. His book goes into detail on the expectations of each part of the welcoming committee: the parking lot attendants, the greeters, the ushers, the information desk. Greg urges everyone to be “hands free”—don’t look at a cell phone instead of greeting and helping each person who comes through the door. Put down your cup of coffee while opening doors for someone and give them your full attention. Be present and welcome them by smiling and waving as people pull into the parking lot to give that great first impression.

* Be accessible. // Part of Greg’s evaluation of a church is whether the pastor is easily accessible. Take time to greet people, especially the visitors, and be open to talking with them and praying with them. A pastor shouldn’t act like a rock star who is immediately ushered off the stage at the end of the sermon and isn’t available to everyone.

You can find Greg’s book Secrets of a Secret Shopper on Amazon and find out more information on Greg’s website www.gregatkinson.com. You can also visit www.expastors.com for more resources aimed at ex-pastors, pastors, and church leaders.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to 

Thanks so much for listening in today on the unSeminary podcast. It’s so great to have you joining us as we talk with Greg Atkinson. Greg has joined us on the unSeminary podcast twice before, and we’re happy to have him with us for a third time. Today we’re talking with Greg about first impressions. […]

Have you ever experienced traction at your church? It’s a beautiful thing. Stuff just seems to work better at every turn. People invite more friends. Folks move from just attending your church to actually joining a team or getting into a small group. Your people fund the mission at levels that actually allow you to make a dent in your mission dreams. Your church moves forward.

You want your church to have traction but what do you need to “do” to get it? What if there was just one thing you could do that would help you gain more traction? What if by doing this one thing stuff would start to click and your church would move forward?

There is one thing your church can do. It’s simple to say but hard to live out. It’s straightforward to understand but is exacting to implement.

Narrow the focus.

Focusing on a just a few things in a wide variety of areas of your ministry will give you more traction. Do less with more intensity. By focusing your effort on just a few things your ministry will move forward because your effort won’t be diffused. What does narrowing the focus look like in your ministry? Here are some suggestions for you to talk over with your team …

Narrow the Focus in Church Communications

Only Allow One Announcement // What if you only talked about one thing on the Sunday morning outside of the message and offering? When you give your people a variety of “asks” to participate in they can’t keep them straight and opt-out of everything. It’s just a fact that humans can only retain so much information at a time. When you ignore this fact and pepper your people with a variety opportunities they can’t retain information about any of them and don’t take action. The task of working with your team to understand what the most important step you want people to take coming out of our services is a healthy conversation for your team and will give them clarity as they attempt to move your church forward.

Focus The Bulletin on Guests // Do you hand out a bulletin or program to people at your church? Do people really read it? What if you put an ad in there stating that the first five people who email in get a $5 gift certificate a favorite local coffee shop? It’s humbling how few people read it enough to get free coffee! The program is great for first time guests arriving at your church because they want to know what your church is all about. What if you remade the entire bulletin with just your guests in mind? Tell them what they need to know about your church and help them take their first steps into community.

Reduce Your Social Media Channels // Every social network has it’s own culture and best practices. In a mad scramble to be relevant to more people, churches will often cross post from one network to another or make a halfhearted attempt to be on “every social network” possible. This diffusion means you aren’t getting leverage on any one channel. Pick a social network that your community is already showing signs of traction and double down on that. Follow other organizations that are gaining tractions on that network and mimic what they do. Read books and listen to podcasts from other industries that are leveraging that network and see what you could apply from those lessons. Resist the temptation to “cross post” from one network to another. Don’t move to another network until you are seeing measurable impact on your ministry.

Narrow the Focus in Your Church Programming

Sing Less Songs // When talking to lots of worship or creative arts people in churches they will often bemoan the fact that their community doesn’t sing enough during weekend services. In fact, sometimes these complaints will come across as condescending against the communities we are serving. We point fingers at our people and why “they” don’t engage in worship. The fact is that only worship leaders listen to worship music a lot.

Have you ever experienced traction at your church? It’s a beautiful thing. Stuff just seems to work better at every turn. People invite more friends. Folks move from just attending your church to actually joining a team or getting into a small group. Your people fund the mission at levels that actually allow you to […]

It’s been said that success doesn’t really happen until successful succession.

Prevailing churches across the country are working on how to move through succession in a purposeful was a generation of leaders consider what their legacy is in ministry. Today’s podcast is an interview with Chris Bonham from Grace Family Church in Florida, a church in the midst of a unique succession process. This episode is packed full of helpful insights on this critically important area including:

* Shared leadership model // How the church is breaking down the walls of the “lone leader” myth found in so many churches.

* Founding Pastor Role // Walking through the roles of preaching, learning culture and vision.

* Transition Plan // Gradual decrease by Lead Pastor and gradual increase by Teaching Pastor.

* Post Succession // A conversation about team leaders beyond the succession point.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! 

It’s been said that success doesn’t really happen until successful succession. Prevailing churches across the country are working on how to move through succession in a purposeful was a generation of leaders consider what their legacy is in ministry. Today’s podcast is an interview with Chris Bonham from Grace Family Church in Florida, a church […]

Has your church grown beyond 750 people, but seems to be bouncing up aimlessly against an attendance ceiling? Does it seem like you’ll never be able to see more than a thousand people attend the Church on a weekend unless it’s a big day like Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday? Have you wondered as to what happens so different in some churches that they are able to continue to grow beyond the size that your church seems to be stuck at? It is unfortunate that most churches will never get to this size; the situation is exacerbated by the lack of adequate resources that help church leaders surmount this critical growth barrier.

Helping churches cross this threshold has been core to my ministry experience over the last 20 years or so. I have noticed some similarities in terms of the factors that went into empowering our churches to grow beyond 1,000 people in weekend attendance. Although every church doesn’t need to reach this magical number, it is important for the broader Christian movement that we have proactive churches of this strength. There is ministry and impact that can only be implemented by large churches as opposed to smaller ones.

Replication of Repeatable Systems

The vital core of what needs to occur in the church to help it get beyond 1,000 people is a series of repeatable systems. Sometimes, church leaders who lead smaller churches are intimidated by the idea of systems and therefore, avoid them altogether; this ultimately impedes their ability to create an impact. A system is simply a documented process of how and what your church does to make it replicable time and again.

Systems are designed to …

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Systems do not need to be mysterious or mystical in order to create that elusive impact in your church. In fact, I’ve seen far too many leaders overcomplicate the building of systems for their ministry. Every system at its core entails a leader taking time to think through what is the optimal way to make something happen. It doesn’t need to be any more complex than simply writing out the steps outlining the important things that have happened at your church. Then you can look at those steps and examine what is working well and what isn’t.

Systems are important at this phase of growth because the people running the ministries are usually disconnected from the people who designed them in the first place. Systems are about making those implicit values and actions totally explicit so as to make them replicable time and again. If the leaders of a church of this size fail to articulate how the ministry transpires, the growth will eventually suffer because communication and leadership development will become bottlenecked around a few people.

A good place to start looking at systemizing a church’s approach would be to examine areas that appear to be attracting people to ministry. For instance, if your musical worship ministry is appealing to guests as they arrive, you would do well to begin chronicling what is going into making that ministry work. If people constantly comment about how welcoming your church’s “new here” process is, then you need to clearly pull that apart and be able to explain the steps that the guests go through upon their arrival. Over a period of time, your church will develop more systems that will help you understand and replicate your ministry.

Here are seven such systems that are critical for every church to think through and develop:

* Outreach – How can we attract people to your church through social media, marketing and communications?

* Weekend Services – How do we plan, implement and evaluate your music, preaching, transitions, offertory, etc. to help build an emotional connection with your community?

* Connection – How can we take people from their first visit to feeling completely at ease in your church?

Has your church grown beyond 750 people, but seems to be bouncing up aimlessly against an attendance ceiling? Does it seem like you’ll never be able to see more than a thousand people attend the Church on a weekend unless it’s a big day like Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday? Have you wondered as to […]

Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We have Jeremy Dager with us, from Mercy Hill Church in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Mercy Hill just recently turned four years old and is on the precipice of becoming a multi-site church. Jeremy leads the age-based ministry, which includes the kids, student, and college ministries.

Greensboro has several colleges in the area with thousands of college students. When the college students first started showing up at Mercy Hill, the church didn’t know exactly what to do for them in particular. They were coming to church, but they weren’t meaningfully becoming connected to the church. Jeremy realized he didn’t really know them and set out to change that. He is with us today to talk about serving college students and how to connect them to the church for both deep and wide growth.

* Keep it simple. // When the college students started coming to Mercy Hill, the church did what they thought was the expected thing, to hold an event focused on millennials. The church learned early on that they could put on a good show and open a door for the college students, however they needed to find a way to close the back door in order to keep those students from leaving. Mercy Hill prides themselves on being a simple church, so Jeremy knew they had to keep the college ministry simple. This meant slashing a lot of things, including the event for the college students. Mercy Hill’s mission is to make sure that the most important thing to the college students is the weekend gatherings and then working within the smaller groups to become connected in meaningful relationships.

* Be intentional. // The “if you build it, they will come” principle may work sometimes. Maybe they will come, but will they become meaningfully connected? Mercy Hill began to reevaluate how they were going about connecting the college students to the ministry. One student in particular came from a historically black college and was the only student from that school at Mercy Hill. They realized that they weren’t going to reach his campus just by holding big events. Instead, they focused on this one student they had and worked intentionally with him for 6-8 months. From that point, Mercy Hill has seen tremendous growth from that school. Intentionality also meant that the church needed a database. They were originally using Google docs to keep track of everyone, but then purchased Fellowship One. Using database software allowed the church to be super intentional about pastoral care toward students. Now Mercy Hill knew where college students were in the process of getting plugged into the church.

* Close the back door. // Mercy Hill Church did well bringing college students in the “front door” of the church, but they weren’t closing the back door well by helping students to plug into meaningful relationships. So they made a goal to see at least 70% of the college students at Mercy Hill connected in small groups. Getting plugged into groups would help keep students connected to the church as well as deepen their relationships with Christ. While Mercy Hill makes it clear that the Weekender event is the first step for anyone coming to the church, now college students can choose whether they want to be a part of a college specific group or a multi-generational group. Mercy Hill keeps the assimilation process simple in that they don’t create different steps for different people based on their age – whether you’re 19 or 69, it’s all streamlined together.

* Keep a long term view. – Some churches may not invest as much in college-aged ministries because it’s tough for them to know ho...