You Can’t Define Your Guests’ Expectations.
If there’s one predictable thing about people, it’s that people are unpredictable. They zig when we expect them to zag. They’re offended when we expect them to be delighted. They swerve left when their turn signal was clearly blinking rigHEYWHATAREYOUDOINGHAVEYOULOSTYOURMIND?!?
I know these things to be true of people, because I myself am a people. And so are you.
Because people are unpredictable, so are their expectations. And if that’s true of people, that’s true of our church’s guests.
Defining what they should expect is a fool’s errand. What one guest likes another will hate. What moves one will stiffen another. Just as we don’t get to define what offends them, we can’t always define what would delight them.
We can’t define their expectations.
But we can shape them.
As a church, we shape expectations when we have a clear view of who we are. Being “all things to all people” doesn’t mean “being everything to everybody.” We have to be satisfied that not everyone will be satisfied. Not everyone is your audience.
Further, we shape expectations when we provide an honest assessment of who we are. Your website can’t promise Elevation and provide First Baptist Possum Holler. It’s disingenuous to preach grace from the pulpit if it’s never shown in the pews. If it’s something you’re promising, it ought to be something you’re delivering. (And as an aside: it’s okay to hold in tension “who we are” vs. “who we’re becoming.” Both can co-exist for a time, but we have to be open about our actuals vs. our aspirationals.)
And finally, we shape expectations when we act as a guide for what’s next. This can be anything from explaining easily-misunderstood parts of our worship services or actually helping point them to their next step. But we don’t do our guests any favors when we hide the final destination from them. We serve them best when we help them know where we’re going, because if they stick around long enough, it’ll be where they’re going as well.
