Front-Load the Value: Creating a Better Experience for First-Time Church Guests

Is your church service putting your worst foot forward instead of your best? Here's a simple way to reverse that.

What does your church do well? And how long does it take a first-time guest to experience it?

Your response to those questions is a huge factor in how well your church attracts and keeps new people.

According to church leadership experts, most people will subconsciously decide whether to come back to a church within the first 7-10 minutes of driving into the parking lot.

If your church is doing everything great, keep it up. But that’s not the case for most of us. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit we do some things well, but there are other aspects of the Sunday morning service we struggle with. And some parts we’re just awful at.

What’s worse, many churches take the things we don’t do well and put them at the beginning of the service. That means our church guests have made a yes/no decision about being a part of our congregation when all they’ve seen are the things we’re not that good at.

No, a 7-10 minute window isn’t enough time for people to make a fair assessment. But it is reality. Read More