Introducing the “Large Church” Series
A couple of years ago I rolled out the “Small Church” series: a collection of articles aimed at those serving in churches of 150 or fewer people in attendance each week. I had a fantastic team of advisors who served in churches ranging from 80-175 weekly, and they helped shape the content for each post.
But just as a smaller church has its own unique challenges when it comes to guest services, so does a larger church. And for the next several months I’m going to tackle a few articles focusing on how larger churches can be more nimble in their guest services.
Getting consensus on what constitutes a “large church” is tricky. Worship Leader defines churches with 500 to 999 worshipers as “medium” (representing 4% of American churches), and churches with 1,000 to 1,999 worshipers as “large” (representing 2% of American churches).
Meanwhile, City to City defines any church with over 800 attendees as a “very large” church, while Church Answers says “very large” can be applied to any church of 250 or higher.
For the purposes of this series, I’m defining a “large church” as any congregation with an average attendance of 800 or more. These can be legacy churches with a long history, newish churches with meteoric growth, or churches who hit 999 and are just teetering on the edge of a thousand. (Sorry to toy with your definitions, Worship Leader.)
As with the Small Church Series, I’ve assembled an advisory board to help me craft the series: nine men and women from churches around the country. These churches range from 800-1,200 in weekly attendance (there’s one 1,500 outlier in the bunch). They stretch from Minnesota to Texas to Delaware to Georgia, and a lot of spots in between. These leaders will help shape the series, speak into content, and make suggestions on posts before they go live. Here’s the team:
- Davone Allen, Catch the Fire Church, Durham, NC
- Jarvis Brennan, Lifehouse Church, Townsend, DE
- Kori Fortman, First Baptist Church, Alpharetta, GA
- Annie Freeman, Hope Community Church, Shelby, NC
- Clif Kapka, The Well Community Church, Argyle, TX
- Jess Magee, North Metro Church, Marietta, GA
- Paul McDonald, Autumn Ridge Church, Rochester, MN
- Donna Paulk, London Bridge Baptist Church, Virginia Beach, VA
- Aaron Schranz, Cross Community Church, Beaufort, SC
I’ll post a new article in the series every few weeks. Here are just a few of the topics we’ll cover:
- 7 Ways Larger Churches Struggle with Hospitality
- How to Get Past the Well-Oiled Machine
- In Search of the Mythical Money Tree
- How to Define Your Guest Services Leadership & Reporting Structure
- Tackling large church myths
- How to hire for guest services in the larger church
- How guest services training can happen in the larger church
- How to care for all guests when new guests keep coming
- How to identify and empower high-capacity volunteers
- How to build information systems so that you (or your vols) don’t have to be a know-it-all
- How to train the rest of your staff in Guest Services best practices
And if you have ideas for topics or questions, let’s talk. Reach out to me directly or comment below.
No doubt there will be great nuggets we can likely still use. Any chance for a “mega” series at some point?
Mega series will likely follow this one, and go ahead and get your “yes” ready…I need you on the advisory team!