You passionately desire to reach these newcomers for Christ. You know that Jesus can make a difference in their life.

Perhaps you’ve spent money on advertising like a direct mail campaign or business cards members give away. You’ve designed sermon series to hopefully entice a second visit.

You’ve done a lot of hard work to get visitors to come to your church, but they fail to return.

It’s frustrating to work so hard and then feel like it’s all in vain. It leaves you wondering –

You've spent the money on advertising.

You've designed the perfect sermon series.

You've even motivated the congregation to invite their friends to church!

You celebrate the fruit – they have come, but then the following Sunday, you discover they don't come back.

I’ve seen statistics that indicate that most churches only keep 1-2 out of every 100 first time church visitors. That's dismal.

Just to stay stable, you need to keep 3 out of every 100.

In order to grow, you need to keep 5-7 or more out every 100 visitors.

Maybe you realize that your hospitality ministry has run on auto-pilot for the last few years. It has decayed to the point where something has to be done.

Inertia and inefficiency always creep in to systems, and churches are no different.

Perhaps your church has accidentally created barriers to helping that first time visitor decide to return for a following Sunday. It happens when things are running on autopilot.

You don't give them a good impression, nor wow them with love and welcome.

You simply hand them a bulletin, and maybe say good morning.

You could spend a few thousand dollars on getting people to 100 additional people to attend your service. But if only one out of a hundred return for a second service, you're successful marketing efforts are wasted on the lack of retention.

There are many reasons your visitor might not return.

A poor welcome should not be one of them.

Your systems and processes for your church’s hospitality can always be improved, and decaying systems can be refreshed.

Hospitality ministry is not about marketing to get visitors.

Rather, it is about giving a great impression to your visitor and helping them decide to return and learn more about your congregation's ministry, mission, and people.

You can’t grow your church if your visitors don’t come back.

Research shows

• 50% of the unchurched choose a church because of friendliness of its members.
• 45% of the churched visitors choose a church because of friendliness of its members.

If visitors don’t return, you can’t help them find faith in Christ.

But if they keep returning, you have the opportunity

• to help them find faith in Christ and take baptism,
• discover their calling in the kingdom of God , and
• find a meaningful place to serve in the community.

Every church leader wants their church to have an evangelistic impact on leading people to faith in Christ.

You want newcomers seeking Christ to finally respond to a member’s personal invitation to church.

You want a newcomer that finally gathers the courage to visit your church after several bad experiences years before.

Perhaps you’ve seen that newcomer in your church, but they fail to return.

Your church will not impact that visitor's life story with the gospel if they don’t come back.

You won't see baptisms of new believers if you have these unnecessary barriers in place.

Hospitality to first time visitors is one critical element to growing your church. It plays a huge role in helping your guests decide to make that all important second visit.

Your church can make an eternal difference in the life of your church guests, if you can help them come back on a regular basis.

Every church wants their first time church visitors to come back and start connecting.

Every church wants newcomers to connect and find faith, friendships, and a place to serve in the transformation of a community.

Wise church leaders will review their hospitality systems and look for unnecessary barriers that keep those church visitors from coming back. Wise church leaders will do advance hospitality preparations in expectation of new church guests.

Wise church leaders will

Were you recently recruited to fix your hospitality ministry?

Were you appointed to fix your hospitality ministry, but don't know where to start?

When you start to think about fixing your church hospitality, we often don’t know where to start.

It’s sort of like the grasping at the fog.

Hospitality committees are often appointed to fix the problems or improve their hospitality systems. It is one area that churches can address in their goal of growth or to double their attendance and make a difference in the community.

Perhaps you were recently recruited to serve on your church’s hospitality committee.

Perhaps you were asked to start your church’s hospitality ministry. Perhaps you’ve been asked to train your church hospitality team.

Perhaps you’ve been appointed by your pastor to figure out how to warm up your church’s welcome.

You don’t need to recreate the wheel. You just need to somewhere to start. You just need a refresher to help you get a great overview of your system and help you find those unnecessary barriers that keep your visitors from returning.

I have put a resource together for hospitality committees and welcome ministry leaders that want to start looking at their hospitality systems, but are not sure where to start.

In 13 short sessions on 3 DVDs, I lead your team through some intentional vision casting and problem solving directions aimed at helping you think through your own setting.

Break the Unseen Barriers was recorded live with an audience from several churches of various sizes that want to improve their hospitality.

The discussion questions provoked a lot of thinking and action plans among the attendees who felt re-energized to tackle their hospitality systems.

You might be a small church, or even a larger church that has more than 100 volunteers on a Sunday in your greeter ministry.

They left the conference with some starting points for action – solving that problem of not knowing where to begin.