If you attend a church regularly, you\u2019ve probably noticed the phenomenon. A guest shows up for a worship service, but he or she never returns. It is, unfortunately, a common issue in many churches.<\/p>\n
I did a Twitter poll to ask these first-time guests why they chose not to return to a particular church. While some of the responses were anticipated, I admit being a bit surprised with some of them.<\/p>\n
Though my poll is not scientific, it is nevertheless fascinating. Here are the top ten responses in order of frequency.<\/p>\n
Having a stand up and greet one another time in the worship service. This response was my greatest surprise for two reasons. First, I was surprised how much guests are really uncomfortable during this time. Second, I was really surprised that it was the most frequent response.<\/p>\n
Unfriendly church members . This response was anticipated. But the surprise was the number of respondents who included non-genuine friendliness in their answers. In other words, the guests perceived some of the church members were faking it. [see HolwickID #64620]<\/p>\n
Unsafe and unclean children\u2019s area . This response generated the greatest emotional reactions. If your church does not give a high priority to children, don\u2019t expect young families to attend.<\/p>\n
No place to get information . If your church does not have a clear and obvious place to get information, you probably have lowered the chances of a return visit by half. There should also be someone to greet and assist guests at that information center as well.<\/p>\n
Bad church website . Most of the church guests went to the church website before they attended a worship service. Even if they attended the service after visiting a bad website, they attended with a prejudicial perspective. The two indispensable items guests want on a website are address and times of service. It\u2019s just that basic.<\/p>\n
Poor signage . If you have been attending a church for a few weeks, you forget all about the signage. You don\u2019t need it any more. But guests do. And they are frustrated when it\u2019s not there.<\/p>\n
Insider church language . Most of the respondents were not referring to theological language as much as language that only the members know. My favorite example was: \u201cThe WMU will meet in the CLC in the room where the GAs usually meet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boring or bad service . My surprise was not the presence of this item. The surprise was that it was not ranked higher.<\/p>\n
Members telling guests that they were in their seat or pew . Yes, this obviously still takes place in some churches.<\/p>\n
Dirty facilities . Some of the comments: \u201cDidn\u2019t look like it had been cleaned in a week.\u201d \u201cNo trash cans anywhere.\u201d Restrooms were worse than a bad truck stop.\u201d \u201cPews had more stains than a Tide commercial.\u201d<\/p>\n
There you have it. The top ten reasons first-time guests said they did not return to a church. I can\u2019t wait to hear from you readers. You always have such good additions and insights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you attend a church regularly, you\u2019ve probably noticed the phenomenon. A guest shows up for a worship service, but he or she never returns. It is, unfortunately, a common issue in many churches. I did a Twitter poll to ask these first-time guests why they chose not to return to a particular church. While […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[582,4303,4305,3788,4306,4304,4307,13,4171,2491],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}