by Greg Curtis: Most of the focus at Christmas revolves around what happens in the auditorium, not around it. Yet it’s where the “common areas” surrounding your auditorium/sanctuary are that most of your guests will decide if your church is one they will be returning to or not. That’s why we all need a first impressions checklist for Christmas.

Wherever the “common areas” surrounding your auditorium/sanctuary are, that’s where most guests will decide if your church is one they will be returning to or not

Out in your Common Areas, what can you focus on this Christmas? Here is your First Impressions Checklist to help you make the right choices and get them implemented:

Here’s a good way to conceal a speaker at your campus when people arrive in the parking lot. This is from Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Chandler AZ. These speakers were sending out the greatest music when I arrived last month at the S2 Conference. Great idea!

? Play Christmas music in the parking lot

I have long felt that we are missing a key opportunity for creating a great first impression for our Christmas guests. It has to do with the well known “decision whether to return” that guests make in the first 7 minutes after arriving.

I think it is fair to say that up to half of that 7 minutes is spent in the parking lot. In addition to the lighting and parking lot team, there is one thing that I believe would bump things up to a 10….music.

After arguing in the car, trying to find this place they’ve been invited to, opening up the car door to silence and other people trying to get their kids in line is not a great impression. That’s why places like Disneyland and other churches, year round, play music in the parking lot. They know the guest experience begins there, not when they walk in the doors.Hearing Christmas music would set the tone from the moment they open the car door, let them know they have arrived someplace special, and would grab their mood before more negative things that compete for their attention can win.

At one of the churches I was at recently, the outdoor trash cans double as speakers (see photo). You could do something now without money by just setting up a portable system outside you may use for special events.

Outdoor Christmas Music Checklist

? Secure any approval you might need.

? Find an appropriate sound system to play your Christmas music that allows people to hear it as soon as they get out of the car.

? Recruit a person to be in charge of set up/tear down of sound equipment as well as operation. You might want to recruit a team leader if you have so many services that you will need multiple team members to set up and operate sound.

? Appoint a person to create the right playlist to set the mood you want (contemporary, traditional, nostalgic, secular or not, etc).

? Decide on exactly what time you want the music to begin and when you want it to stop playing.

?Look for eyes that wander inquisitively

Looking into people’s eyes as you walk around to see if they are trying to find something is a call to inquire. “Can I help you find something?” is a great question to ask people staring up at way finding signs or stopping to survey where to go next with their kids. Walking handicap people to the front of the line or the auditorium is a nice touch here too and reflects the heart of the one whose birth we are celebrating.

Need Finders Checklist

? Decide whether you will give existing volunteers (i.e. Parking Lot, Greeters, Ushers, Staff, etc.) vision and training for Need Finding or if you will form a specialized team. If a special team will be formed, write a job description for them.

? Determine if and how guests with special needs and elderly guests will have their needs addressed (think timing, preferred seating, etc.).

? Design training ? for whatever teams will be owning need finding. Include looking for people who need photos taken of their family so everyone gets in the photo.

? Schedule training for team(s) responsible. Share job description in advance with them so they can ask questions.

We call our volunteers “Change Makers” and they are all over during Christmas services at our church directing parking, handing out gifts, performing on stages, and taking photos of guests.

?Take photos for people at any photo ops

Though we have volunteers manning the photo ops, sometime your church’s Christmas decor creates an unplanned photo op for a family or group of friends who would love everybody to be in the photo if they had someone to take the picture. Be that person.

Photo Op Checklist

? Decide if you are going to have special photo op areas set up in your lobby and at strategic places on your campus. Build a hashtag into your photo ops (ours was #ChristmasatEastside) so that when people post their photo on social media, people can find your church.

? Appoint an artist NOW so they have time to send you a design to approve for 1 to 3 photo ops.

? Provide a team of builders to help make that artist’s dream a reality.

? Decide who will set up and tear down the photo ops after Christmas.

?Ask if this is their first Christmas at your church

If it is, have a VIP experience in mind to kick into. Maybe its some candy in your pocket for kids or a gift card for free cocoa in your cafe. If it is, ask how they heard about your church. You will find out things from this spontaneous focus group that you would have found out no other way. Put their answers on your note app on your phone and send them to relevant staff when everyone comes back to the office to evaluate Christmas in January.

VIP Experience Checklist

? Make sure your Guest Service Teams (and/or Need Finders from above) are trained to ask this question as conversations develop with guests.

? Design a simple plan to give that guest(s) q VIP treatment, being very specific as to what you want that experience to look like.

? Include a way of tabbing on their phones the way people heard about your church (this is of course if you don’t ask that question on the guest cards in your bulletin).

? Schedule a time to review the results of the data collected on how people found your church and what that might mean for next Christmas.

On every table for our entertainment at Cornerstone: a yo yo. Some people really are experts at this bad dog and watching people’s tricks while we waiting in a long line for food became a fun distraction.

?Work the lines

If lots of people come early and are needing to stay in your lobby till the doors open, have stanchions for them and/or a special room where you and other Sherpas can “work the room”. We have staff and volunteers sign up for just this every year. Some give out candy, some play a Christmas version of “Heads Up” on their phones with others. On one campus, we even have a volunteer performing illusions for people in line while they wait. Conversation is a great way to connect and welcome Christmas guests but you can’t have conversation if you are not located where the conversations can be found so identify staff or certain volunteers to engage those in the lines while they wait.

Line Experience Checklist

? Identify who will work the lines while people are waiting to enter your auditorium to celebrate Christmas.

? Determine what activities they will use to engage the guests waiting in line.

? Decide what props or supplies will be needed to those activities to take place and who will be responsible to acquire them.

? Schedule those people for each Christmas service.

?Respond with spontaneous prayer

One time in our lobby, I was leaning against a podium that was being used for check in. Someone came up to me to ask for prayer for some people they were inviting to church. I leaned against it and prayed, inviting this person to hold my hands on the “prayer podium” as I did. We laughed about it, but then someone else wanted prayer when they saw it. I moved the podium (a small stand) up to them and did the same thing in a humorous but “get the job done” kind of way. I prayed for a few people spontaneously in the lobby that day. I also got to baptize the people I prayed for from the first request a month later at their small group. If someone asks for prayer, take their hand, include others and pray right then and there. It also shows the heart of God and your church in a way nothing else can.

Spontaneous Prayer Checklist

? Appoint a pastor on call to be available before and after all Christmas services as a specific location.

? Communicate to all Guest Service Teams the availability of that resource with instructions to bring people to him/her rather than abandon their post to do pastoral care.

?Meet family and friends that people have invited

Don’t let people get away with not introducing their guests to you as you wander the lobby. Hearing their stories, having a few lines in your pocket that get a laugh, asking questions like, “How did they get you here tonight?” and “How far did you drive?” among many others are good conversation starters among 1st timers that came on the arms of people in your church. The people of your church will feel very valued that you did so.

Our Lead Pastor Gene Appel sets the example by doing this every weekend much less at Christmas. You can too. You are all powerful jet in the “lazy river” that guides guests into deeper connection with God and your church family.

Do you struggle with finding, recruiting and training enough volunteers for your Christmas services? Next post: a Volunteer Recruitment and Onboarding Checklist for Christmas.

Get together with Staff or your Guest Services team having shared the link to this post. Brainstorm together what it would look like to make the best first impression possible for your Christmas guests.

Check any of the large boxes that represent anything you would like to add to enhance your first impression on your Christmas guests.

Copy/Paste and print out the sublists and delegate them to qualified people who would be excited to run point on that kind of effort. Decide on due dates for specific items.

Schedule an evaluation date in January to evaluate how everything went and the implications for Christmas services next year.

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Source: Your First Impressions Checklist for Christmas

The post Your First Impressions Checklist for Christmas appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Greg Curtis: When we had our third child, she was unexpected. We had undergone medical procedures to insure we would not have more children.

Then came Carly.

I often joked that because she was our third, we were lucky to have photos of her. In fact, when I brought her back to the hospital she was born at when she twisted her ankle at 6 years old, we both had a stunning revelation: Her birth certificate revealed we had been celebrating her birthday on the wrong day her entire life. Yep, 2 full days off. I will never forget how she looked at me, a look like, “Are you really my dad? Or are you some guy mom found that was willing to raise me who hadn’t finished reading up on me yet?”

Carly was a voracious reader. The more she liked an author or a series (Twilight, Lord of the Rings, The Space Trilogy, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia and more), the more she would read them again! I don’t even like seeing a movie twice so I was amazed at how she loved to throw herself into all this material.

Carly was also her mama’s girl. She not only looked like her, but when Carly was ages 2 thru 6, there was no one of mere flesh and blood that could separate her from her mama. I was slapped across the chops for attempting a separation. So was my mother. So was my grandmother.

Carly was even asked to permanently leave a church preschool for 2 reasons:

It required she be separated from her mother and she would not be having that, no.

She would not stop explaining to the other hysterical children that the real Santa Claus who actually lived in the fourth century was now dead.

When Carly knew something, she knew it deep and would/will argue you to the ground if she knew herself to be right.

That spirit of confidence in what she knew and studied not only caused her to graduate with honors, but it made the year I had her as an Assimilation Intern at my church one of the most memorable ones I’ve ever had.

Carly was the one who would accompany me on Base Camps to run things from the back and to answers questions of church staff from all over the country. Carly was the one who discovered that the newly increased frequency of our assimilation program had resulted in 1 out of 5 of those being baptized attending, versus 1 out of 32 of those baptized through our former quarterly program. And it was Carly who I sent to our new LaHabra campus to launch our Assimilation Program (“Next Steps”) with my friend Jeff Sandoval where she led it for a year and half, explaining the faith and our church to new guests.

I actually thought all this was possible because she is MY daughter.

I now know it was largely because Carly is a Five on the Enneagram.

Here’s what a Five fears experiencing at your church. If there are lots of people they don’t know, and decisions are being asked of them that they feel unprepared for, they may start feeling a little like Jon Snow does here.

How a Type Five sees their world

Fives look around and wonder if they have the energy, time and resources to deal with everything that’s surrounding them. If you want to experience the world of a Five, picture yourself as Jon Snow in this battle scene from Game of Thrones. This photo represents not how they necessarily feel, but how they fear feeling when they are in a new environment that could possibly catch them off guard. They fear being overwhelmed and they strive to maintain competency by knowing those around them and the topics that will be focused on in advance.

Because of this, Fives tend to have fewer friends, but go deep with the ones they have, often keeping them for life. The predictability of these relationships creates a secure environment that they feel a mastery over-with a low risk of feeling helpless and a high probability of being seen as helpful.

How Fives experience your church

Ready for this one? Fives see your church as a catalogue. When coming into a church for the first time, Fives aren’t looking for new friends, affirmation, or a spiritual high. They are looking for information. They see your church as a place where information should be readily available about…

God, what He’s like and what he’s not like.

Comparisons to other notions about God.

Where to go to find things (clear signage) and to find answers (info counter).

How to access information about resources that would be helpful to them or others they care about personally.

Where to start.

On that last one, Fives like to have the info organized or indexed in an accessible logical way. In other words, a friendly person inviting them to lunch or to a men’s or women’s retreat is not going to impress them. In fact it may make them uncomfortable. What will impress them is having a place to have the important questions answered first and the space to process the answers to those questions at a pace that allows them to own them. An ordered, logical progression of information is appreciated by Fives and will give them a sense of trust and expectancy as they see answers coming in multiple sermons, sessions, discussions or places. The promise and delivery of intel on this new church they are finding themselves in is the best thing you can do to connect a Five.

“The promise and delivery of intel on this new church they are finding themselves in is the best thing you can do to connect a Five.”

Dos and Don’ts for for connecting a Type Five

Do: Give them info in an organized way.

Clear signage from parking to auditorium are appreciated by a Five. An easy to access info counter is valuable too. Most of all when it comes to becoming part of a church or the Faith for that matter, Fives will value a well thought out step by step program for exploring matters or faith, a church’s vision, and how to become a part.

Don’t: Force them to commit to positions.

Because Fives will commit to an environment where relevant info is discussed and processed, don’t mistake their enthusiasm for learning as an enthusiasm for Jesus or becoming his follower, at least not yet. Their passion is for getting the data necessary for forming a new or more solid position on a topic they had insufficient info on. They will attend faithfully any environment that delivers this kind of information.

When being invited to serve, be careful about placing Fives in roles that require them to believe things or advocate positions that they may not have fully processed or wrestled with. Use them in places that are appropriate to their convictions. They will be good at participating in discussions where the information they obtained that was helpful for them can be shared now to help others.

When they have formed a position or conviction, they will own it in a notable way. Which leads me to thier unique influence as a volunteer.

What is the “Superpower” of a Five on a volunteer team?

When a Five volunteers, they become a docent for others-a tour guide of sorts. They explain the terrain they have studied, what they’ve discovered that has made them feel comfortable, and encourage others to lean into the value of what is being offered-kinda like Carly when she led Next Steps at our new campus after returning from her first year of college.

When a Five feels competent….Or, how Carly appeared when someone would try to separate her from her mother.

Once they have “mastered the material” (their knowledge of God, how he works in people’s lives, how your church operates, etc.), this knowledge will make a Five appear more like Jon Snow in this photo instead of the previous one I shared.

Except they will look more like a tour guide instead of a warrior, so there’s that.

If you are looking for a “Five friendly” way to help your volunteers or staff team form an improved connection pathway for guests of any enneagram number at your church, access my video course here. In six sessions, you can work through a checklist that will help you build the four parts of an effective assimilation strategy into you church within a few months. All this will help you move toward connecting 1 out of 4 guests at weekend services into a small group or a ministry team so that they stick.

If you were information oriented (like a Five), what would be the first 5 pieces of info you would want to know on your first visit to your church? What about the second and third visits? List them in order.

What is the best delivery system for each of those pieces of info? Think location, medium (print, digital, personal) or program.

What environments do you have for people to process faith in Jesus? On a 1 to 5 scale, how well are they working? What is one thing you could do to make them more “Five Friendly”?

Carly today, doin’ her thing.

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Source: How a Type 5 on the Enneagram experiences your church and how to connect them

The post How a Type 5 on the Enneagram experiences your church and how to connect them appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: Vlog: Excellence in Portable Churches

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Source: Practical Steps to Creating Your Environment, Part 2

The post Practical Steps to Creating Your Environment, Part 2 appeared first on Passion for Planting.