a visitor's perspective

Guest blogger David Zimmerman is doing a series on church from the visitor's point of view over at Church Marketing Sucks. Number three, yesterday, was titled "The Welcoming Paradox."

He talks about the delicate balance between not embarrassing new visitors (which was the subject of installment #2), and not leaving them to fend for themselves. The part that I nervously laughed at yesterday was when he and his wife, "eventually found a table in the lobby with a sign declaring it to be the 'Welcome Table,' but no one ever showed up."

He goes on to talk about empowering your congregation to be nice to people, but I couldn't get past the welcome center. Can visitors to your church get past the welcome center? Is it visible? Obvious, even? Are there people there on Sunday mornings? If not, is there a floor plan on display? Signage? Directions? Anything that is at all helpful?

first impressions

Todd Rhoades posted an interesting article on Insight last week about first impressions.

The main thrust of the article was on making sure your church website is catchy, but - and he mentions this - the same principal applies to your building. We like to quote the statistic that it takes about three seconds for someone to decide if he'll return to your church, but it may not even take that long.

A study of internet users, reported at nature.com, shows, "the brain can make flash judgements almost as fast as the eye can take in the information." While this study, again, focused on how users judge websites, the "halo effect" has long been recognized by psychologists as, "a potential inaccuracy in observation, due to overgeneralization from a limited amount of evidence or the influence of preconceived beliefs."

Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church, put it more simply when he said, "Your sermon starts in the parking lot."

What do visitors to your church see in the first 50 milliseconds that your building comes into view? What do they see within 50 milliseconds of walking in the front door? And more importantly, what do you want them to see?