by Portable Church Industries: Choosing to visit a church for the first time can be a daunting experience for many. Many first time visitors to your church can have their defenses up. Perhaps they have been hurt by a previous experience; perhaps they walked away from established religion a long time ago; perhaps they’ve never been to church. Regardless of their reasons for walking in our doors, it is our job to “disarm” them, to set the stage for them to hear the gospel and to prepare them for praise & worship.

A quick and easy way to ensure their comfort in a Portable Church is to ensure that your signage iscorrect, helpful, easy to read and pleasing to the eye.

Great communication, especially if no one is around, makes a guest feel valued and brings quick trust to your church.

It’s possible that your first-time-visitor will prefer to remain anonymous and will not be comfortable asking strangers for directions. Even if they are comfortable with asking for directions, they may not always be able to locate someone (especially if they arrive late). Make sure they know where to park, which entrance to use, where to get information, where to get coffee, where to drop off their children, which door to use for the worship environment, etc.

As a quick rule of thumb, when a visitor is standing at a sign pointing them toward somethings, they should be able to see the next sign from where they are.

Here’s a quick list of suggestions we make to all of our church planters:

• • Menu Signs– place menu signs at all entrances that show locations for major routes.

• • Helper Signs– If visitors will have a long walk from one destination to another, make sure to place “helper signs” letting them know that they’re still heading in the right direction.

• • Destination Signs– Each room should have a sign in front of it, signaling “This is it!”

• • Exterior Signage– Outside your venue, use signage to clearly mark parking entrances, main entrances and sectioned parking. Take the main entrance or the street-facing entrance and “claim” it as your own while you’re there!

Making these simple suggestions a part of your portable church culture can help you begin tocreate an environment of comfort and ease for your first time visitor.If you haven’t yet, check out some of the environments and mobile church signage we’ve done on our photos page.

As always, if you have any questions – especially regarding  signage concepts, the right number of signs, the height, width, etc, give us a call.

In the meantime, check out the signs at the airport next time you are there. Pay special attention to the signs you use when trying to find the baggage claim at your destination.That’sgood signage.