Guesterizing Our Church

Beth and Sam and I visited some friends one summer in Oklahoma. We had met them through our work with Soulforce, but had never been to their home prior to this visit. They lived in a beautiful house on the banks of a large lake. We had a great time fishing and boating and skiing and waverunning, but one memory that stands out from that visit is how incredibly comfortable we felt being there. The house was clean and tidy; our needs were well tended; and our friends were genuinely glad we were there. They had "guesterized" their home for us.

Have you ever guesterized your home? What does that involve? Cleaning and planning and preparing meals and activities are some examples of guesterizing. These are very intentional and targeted tasks to prepare for guests, whether it’s for a dinner party or an extended stay. We tend to want to present our best selves as hosts to guests.

How about our church home? Are we guesterizing our church? Are we presenting our best selves to our guests?

In his book Beyond the First Visit: A Complete Guide to Connecting Guests to Your Church, Gary McIntosh explains:

Being nice to people is just the beginning of connecting people to your church… But being nice and smiling accounts for only about 20 percent, at most, of actually connecting guests to a church. The important thing is to design systems that provide excellent service to those who attend your church. And nowhere is this more important than when you welcome newcomers on their first visit.

To guesterize a church, according to McIntosh, means to make it more responsive to its guests and better able to attract new ones through service, care, love, and acceptance. It occurs when we make our guests the most important people at our church on Sunday mornings… when we respond to their needs in a manner that causes them to enjoy their time with us. It means providing superior service so that they want to move beyond that first visit.

McIntosh goes on to describe more specific ways that a church can be guesterized. Many of these ideas are now being developed and implemented by our Hospitality Team. But most of the guesterizing can only be done by you.

My Top Ten List of What We Owe Our Guests (see my previous blog articles) may provide some ideas of what you can do to help guesterize our church:

What We Owe Our Guests:
#10 A Culture of Hospitality
#9 An Open Door
#8 A Smile
#7 An Introduction
#6 Our Nametag
#5 A Safe Place to Wonder
#4 A Helping Hand
#3 An Invitation to Belong
#2 A Purpose
#1 Love

If you will commit to intentionally providing just three of these things to our guests and newcomers at every opportunity, I believe we will witness an amazing transformation of our church. And I believe there will be no limit to our capacity to transform the world into a better place.

Watch for more changes in the coming weeks as we continue to guesterize our church.

And as always, if you are interested in being a part of the Hospitality Team that is leading the way with this effort, please contact me at oruuc.membership@gmail.com or 865-740-0167.

Thank you for all you do!!! See you at church!

Gina