The Diluted Effect of Too Many On-Ramps
This is the next installment in our ongoing “Large Church” series, which looks at guest services through the lens of the larger congregation: those with an average attendance of 800 or more. See the entire series here.
In an earlier article in this series, I proposed seven ways that larger churches struggle with hospitality. Struggle #6 is The diluted effect of too many on-ramps.
In the past, I’ve defined an “on-ramp” as any clearly identified way for a First-Time Guest to make themselves known. For this post, I’ll expand that definition to include any next step for someone to move from connected to committed.
Whether we’re talking Rick Warren’s “baseball diamond” of the 90s, Church of the Highland’s more contemporary “growth track,” or even the “walk the aisle, fill out a card, and play beat the clock with Just as I Am” plan of my home church in the 70s and 80s, every church must help people figure out how to get from their Point A to whatever they define as Point B.
Here are four common reasons why larger churches typically struggle with too many on-ramps:
1. We don’t know what we’re asking of people.
The old adage “If it’s a mist in the pulpit, it’s a fog in the pew” is absolutely true of our on-ramp processes. Many times, even we don’t understand the process, the steps, the big win, the tiny nuances of the systems along the way.
If a next step is unclear to us, it will never be clear to our newcomers. We need to fully audit and debrief what’s working, what’s not, and what should change. But in doing so, we have to be careful of point 2:
2. We add to without taking away.
I’ve seen far too many churches with a Frankenstein’s Monster of assimilation process. Years’ worth of sedimentary layers pile on top of each other in order to create a system that is unrecognizable from its original form or intent.
If something is getting added, there’s a 90% chance that something else needs to die in order to make room for it. Otherwise, we multiply the confusion factor. If everything is important, nothing is.
3. We operate in silos.
This conversation is not just about membership or assimilation, but all next steps. Think about your volunteer processes: from ministry to ministry, how alike are they? How different are they? Dollars to donuts you have a wildly different onboarding / next steps process for your various ministries.
Why not collaborate and consolidate? Nelson Searcy speaks to this in his great book Connect: How to Double Your Number of Volunteers. He says that every ministry within a church should have 100% aligned systems at the bottom of the ladder, only diversifying when that ladder gets higher.
4. We don’t think about the end user.
One of the biggest issues I’ve seen that causes problems with our on-ramps? We don’t think about the person that we actually expect to take a step. Sure, we make sure that our doctrine is tight and our database is supportive and our by-laws are being upheld, but we don’t often stop to ask the question, “Is this a good experience for our people?”
Here’s the thing about a good experience…or a bad one: word gets out. And if someone has a bad experience taking a next step, they’ll do their best to make sure their friends don’t follow in their footsteps.
Which of those four struggles is most common to your church?
