I’ve recently been coaching some churches that have purchased a copy of Church Greeters 101.

In each case, I’ve talked with a relatively new volunteer in charge of the Church Greeters Ministry.

Often this volunteer is looking for new ideas to improve the existing greeter ministry in their church. They see that their greeters are

• showing up late
• not fulfilling their roles
• apathetic in their hello.

Here are a 3 quick start ideas:

1. Cast the Vision for Church Greeters.

When church greeters see their task as only “Saying hello to people walking in the door on a Sunday morning,” it’s pretty easy to consider the role as unimportant. They don’t see the big picture their role plays in the over all welcome experience.

If you are the greeter ministry leader, regularly help your greeters see the big picture of church hospitality and how it helps people grow in journey with Christ.

Action step: What can you do in the next 7 days to cast a vision?

2. Appreciate your Church Greeters.

We have all experienced the impact of appreciation and encouragement. A regular thank you or action of appreciation often remotivates volunteers and honors them for their work.

• Send a thank-you note.
• Smile.
• Send a Christmas greeting card or similar at another holiday.
• Spontaneously say “thank-you” during a chance or planned meeting or gathering.
• Ask a greeter for their input about a program or evaluation.
• Utilize a suggestion box. Carefully consider their suggestions!

I try to send hand written thank you notes to people who support this ministry and have been told several times how appreciated those notes are.

Action Step: Who do you need to say thank you to? Go do it within the next 7 days.

3. Email Quick Tips to your Church Greeters

Some of your greeter volunteers don’t necessarily know what is expected of them and may feel nervous about serving. They may also feel embarrassed about asking you what to do, so help minimize that potential nervousness by emailing some quick tips to your greeters when reminding them of their upcoming service.

Some churches are choosing to create a series of 12 emails they send out to all their greeter volunteers, one per month with some quick tips.

Here is one example:

Read: 10 Tips for Church Greeters.

Action step: Use the share feature below on the 10 Tips for Church Greeters article and share it with your church greeter team, facebook, and linked in.

All of these have come across my twitter feed:

• I’m the greeter at church today.  Is it bad if I greet everyone, then go back home to bed?
• Ok, went to church & this old guy (greeter) saw me w/my kids & was like where is their dad? He was so crusty, we were like really perv?
• I  have a creeper at my mom’s church . . .the creepy greeter freak me out.  I don’t even like going to her church now.
• When you randomly get signed up to be a greeter for your church mass?  #ihatechurch
• If Walmart greeter is warmer and more authentic than ones at church there is a problem.
• To church today, had to be a greet, which I love to do every first Sunday.  I like to greet people who come to my church
• Today my greeter at Church told me to suck it up and stop complaining about being sore.
• “Nice to meet you.  Who the hell are you?” Greeter at church this morning
• That awkward moment when you’re holding hands with your dad walking into church & the greeter tells you what a good looking couple you make.
• I would not join your church if the greeter gave me a flyer to another church and told me I should check them out next week
• Sometimes I hate being the greeter at church

I have a twitter feed that watches for information on church greeters.

Every Sunday, I see

• Joy at serving as a church greeter
• Complaints about experiences with rude church greeters
• Sarcasm aimed at unprepared greeters at church
• Nervous greeters announcing how nervous they are.
• Comments that are generally inappropriate for church greeters to make.

For example, some recent church greeter comments

• Being a greeter is the best job in church
• So I’m hung over and I’m supposed to be the greeter at church today 🙁 this will be fun
• First thing the male greeter at church says to me “Sorry, all the cute guys were at the first service.”
• Walked into a church I’ve never been to and the greeter said “Oh, you didn’t bring a boyfriend?”
• The greeter at church asked me how old I was and I told him I was 21.
• Tomorrow I’m a greeter at my church for the first time ever. YIKES.

Your greeters may need some practical tips on making a great first impression, and some skills on how to welcome people.

The following article by Brandon Cox appeared at Faith Village and is re-posted with author’s permission.

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No matter what your philosophy of Sundays in the life of your church looks like, it’s always biblical and beneficial to show love to people who are walking through the doors for the first or second time. In fact, it’s crucial. It’s very easy to come across as either disingenuous with an “in your face” approach, but it’s equally easy to seem uncaring by our silence.

As you help believers learn how to show love to new guests, here are some important principles to communicate:

1. You are the first loving touch every guest will meet, which sets the stage for people to be open to life change. People will be more or less receptive to the teaching depending on how they were made to feel on the way in.
2. Most guests will decide in the first few minutes if they will return, even before the music starts. It’s easy to walk into church if you’re there every week, but do you remember what it was like walking in for the first time, when you didn’t think you’d know anyone and wondered if anyone would want to know you?
3. Your biggest goals are to 1.) eliminate awkwardness and 2.) encourage people. We worship together in a movie theater, so we have the advantage of knowing that people already know what it’s like to walk into a theater, but they’re still asking themselves questions like: Am I following their rules? Am I dressed appropriately? Will I be able to find the bathroom without asking?
4. You are a tour guide who takes people to their destination, not a travel agent who sends them there. Walking parents and kids all the way to the next volunteer in the kids’ worship room is far better than pointing a finger and saying, “it’s down there on the right.” Walk with people and ask them questions on the way. Be genuinely interested in their lives.
5. You can have a ministry of encouragement and even offer to have a brief prayer with people. Obviously, some first time guests may not be comfortable with such forwardness, but sometimes it may be highly appropriate to pray with guests before they enter the auditorium, especially if you’ve sensed a spiritual need in them. Keep it brief and don’t make things awkward, but communicate that you care.
6. Everybody ought to receive a smile, a word of welcome, a loving touch (such as a handshake), and a bulletin on their way in. A smile disarms people and boosts their confidence. A word of welcome is common courtesy. A loving touch, such as a handshake or a brief hug, might be the only loving touch that guest receives this week. And a bulletin, at least in our case, is like a map for what’s going on and allows the guest to respond to the message and request more information.

Last Sunday, my wife noticed a new kid in kids’ worship. Two other boys belonging to one of our core families walked up to him and asked him if he liked video games. Upon hearing his enthusiastic “yes” they replied, “Good, you can be in our group then.” The kid belonged already, evidenced by his smile.

God showed His love for people by sending His Son to die for our sins. Are we willing to love people enough to intentionally show it with our actions?

And by the way, if you’re a believer, you’re a greeter at your church whether you’re signed up or not.

Brandon Cox is Lead Pastor of Grace Hills Church, a new plant in northwest Arkansas. He is also Editor of Pastors.com and Rick Warren’s Pastor’s Toolbox. Catch him on Twitter@brandonacox.

CC Image • Kevin Dooley on Flickr
Originally Published: June 6, 2012

Many thanks. Your eBook was just the thing I had been looking for as I am trying to improve the Meeting & Greeting at our Anglican Church.

The ebook is certainly comprehensive and is very suitable for our two congregations of 50 – 80 each. Will help to change the process from being a ‘chore’ to ‘enjoyable’.

I have made a Keynote presentation for Meeting and Greeting 19 slides.

Roger Street

Whangaparaoa, New Zealand.

Churches are putting the finishing touches on all the new programs that’ll launch this fall:

• New Sermon Series
• New Small Groups
• New Sunday School Classes
• New Outreach Events

Many are planning for new visitors, and putting the final fresh touches on their hospitality ministries.

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But here is the question:

• Does your greeter ministry feel stale and unmotivated?
• Are your new volunteer greeters eager to do a great job?
• Do you think your greeters are nervous about knowing what to do?
• Are you running out of time to organize a training event for your greeting team?
• Can’t get your volunteers together during this busy end of summer travel season?

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I’ve recorded an on-line training event for your greeter volunteers to help you give that last minute training. It’s now available for purchase in the store.

Read more at our main site:

https://store.evangelismcoach.org/shop/church-greeter-training-webinars-2-pack/

Image source: Unknown

Who:

• Greeter Volunteers,
• Hospitality Coordinators
• Ushers
• Potential Volunteers for Hospitality teams.

In this video, I shared an experience that I had with a church greeter / usher during a worship time at a conference. The experience impacted me deeply, even though it occurred in 1997.

(Feed Readers: you may need to click through to see the video).

Church Greeters and Ushers should notice people

The key point here is that some church greeters or ushers may alert for situations like the one described in the video.

Even if they are not comfortable offering to pray with people, they should be able to find someone on your church’s prayer ministry team to accomplish the same action.

Let me ask you this?

Do you think this is a good skill for greeters, or do you accomplish this same practice through other ways?

Do you think greeters and ushers should play this kind of role?

I invite your comments.

Below are snippets from chapter 2 of my ebook: Church Greeters 101.

Do people remember this about visiting your church?

One night over dinner, I heard this story firsthand from a Hispanic immigrant who had experienced the transforming grace of Christ. He had begun looking for a church for his family.  He told me:

I had only been a Christian for six months. We moved from [another city] and began to look for a Spanish language church. I didn’t find any for a few weeks, so my wife and I decided to attend an English language congregation.

We arrived and sat down in the pews, clearly the stranger. We didn’t speak English at the time, so we really had no clue as to what was happening. When the service was over, all the people began leaving.

We stood around, and guess what? No one talked to us.

The only thing my friend only remembers about that church six years later is that no one said hello.

Imagine your experience if you walked into a church for the first time and no one greeted you.

If you were the first time visitor, imagine no one answering your questions about where is the rest room, or where do you take your children. Imagine no one to point out who to talk to with the spiritual need that drew you to church today. Imagine the feeling of noticing the congregation seems to ignore you.

If you were a regular attender or member, imagine that you have had a really awful week. Imagine no one is at the door to even notice the burden you carry and offer to pray with you. Imagine that no one even notices that your countenance that suggests you have come to church with a need.

Imagine for a moment that a life crisis has hit and you have not been physically or emotionally able to attend church for a few weeks.   Imagine that no one notices that you have been ‘missing.’

Imagine walking into such a church. It would feel cold. You would feel out of place, and you would likely feel that no one cares. If this was your first visit, you would not likely return for a second or third time.

Before any worship service begins, the work of your effective greeters helps your first time visitors and members feel welcome into the house of God.

Why bother?

Some churches I’ve consulted with can’t seem to recruit enough volunteers, people drop out after one or two weeks, some don’t ever want to do it again, and some church haven’t even started a greeting ministry. I hear stuff like

• I can’t find anyone to do it.
• There are not enough volunteers.
• I don’t know how to talk to a visitor.
• Getting volunteers to take the plunge.
• We don’t do it because it’s everyone’s job.
• People say yes, but don’t show up for duty.
• I’m afraid that we will mess up God’s work in someone’s life.

With all the challenges to recruiting and training greeters, we come to the question of why bother? Why put up with the organizational efforts and human resources it takes to manage such a challenge? Why spend hours of volunteer effort and energy to recruit, train, and equip greeters?

It’s not enough to say ‘we’ve always done it this way.’ In the last two churches I served, the ministry of greeters was an operating assumption. One can’t keep programs in perpetuity simply because you have been doing them. Churches should know why they have such programs and why they should continue to have hours of energy invested in recruiting, training, and developing a greeters and a greeting ministry.

Why bother?

No church wants to unintentionally give a visitor or member
a bad experience, nor feelings of being unwanted or unwelcomed.

No church wants to be rude
and hinder a family’s journey of faith to Christ.

The potential long reach of a hello

Here is one from a family who dropped out of church over 40 years ago because no one said hello:

Over a good meal one night with an irreligious married couple, we spoke of church life, faith, Christ, and other topics. They both attended church 3 times a week growing up, but once they married and relocated to another city, they quit going.

They hadn’t been to church regularly for nearly 40 years and faith is no longer important to them. Their children weren’t church goers and grew up without any real knowledge of the grace of God.

I asked, ‘Why did you stop going?’

“When we were newly married,” they replied, “we relocated hundreds of miles away from our home town, away from family, friends, and our support network.

“We visited a few churches of our brand and not one person said hello or took interest in us.”

Did you catch that? A generation of children grew up into adulthood in an irreligious household because the parents couldn’t find a church where they felt welcomed. One child became a Christian later in life, thanks to the saving grace of Christ.

Greeters have more impact than they think.

Greeters serve in quiet but vital roles. They make sure the church is ready for the service. They make sure to greet members and visitors and all the children as they arrive. Ushers help people to their seat and answer any last minute questions that visitors may have thought of.

Greeters and ushers may continue to serve during the worship service, helping the latecomers get situated, or even ministering to those who may have quietly stepped out into the hall to find some space.

As people leave the worship experience, greeters are there to give a final greeting and an invitation to return again.

First impressions are not about right doctrine, but about the emotional and relational experiences that a person has with your congregation.

Potential Spiritual Impact

I received this note in my email. The writer is a high school friend and refers to events nearly 20 years ago when she was forced to go to church as a very troubled teenager. She reflects on influences that helped her come to her own faith in Christ as an adult.

It started with my parents forcing me into the car and forcing me out of the car every single Sunday. I sat on the back table and didn’t participate or anything….really because I could NOT believe in something I couldn’t see.

Yet there was this one guy who kept coming up, every single week, to say hi, give me a hug, etc…..and even though I thought it was strange, I thought there must be something at work here…so I started listening more….then I actually started praying….then I actually started looking forward to the youth group and the fellowship with my peers. . .

Then I started seeing people who really believed and were not only believers, but were willing to share, no matter how long it took, with someone totally outside the sphere of believers….totally awesome….so……thank you.

Did you notice the power of a greeter in her story and journey to faith? She experienced a greeting and kindness that eventually influenced her into finding faith in Christ.

Order your copy of Church Greeters 101 here.

Rev. Susan and I talk about an experience of the unexpected that occurred during a church visit.

She took a therapeutic dog to church and experienced different kinds of reactions to the presence of a dog.

Watch this church greeter video case study and then add your comments to the field below.

How can you prepare your church greeters for a situation like this?

In the comments below, how can you prepare your church greeters for surprise situations?

Share with us your thoughts.

Do you lead your greeter ministry?

If you lead your church greeter ministry, you’ll want to acquire this for your own inspiration or training:

• Church Greeter Training DVDs version
• Or get the download only versions here.