Five Questions Your First-Time Guests Are Asking
In the last post, we tackled the hard-hitting questions that actually aren’t all that hard hitting. Or even questions at all. Because they are things that your first-time guests aren’t really asking.
Sure, at some point people will want to know more about your doctrine, what you offer, and how they can get involved. But for the vast majority of previously-unchurched people, that’s not their starting point.
No, for true first-timers, they are often asking a series of questions that seem so obvious to us, we can’t imagine they’re asking. Because we have the curse of knowledge, it doesn’t occur to us that our guests are simply trying to figure out what any newcomer would need to know.
The following five questions may not be spoken out loud – or phrased exactly this way – but I guarantee you the sentiment is there.
1. Where and when do you meet?
Seriously, friends: check your website, all your digital properties, and your physical church sign. I never fail to be surprised at the number of Redemption Churches (or First Baptist Churches, or Life Churches) websites that don’t list a city or state. Or they list their office address but not their meeting space address. Or that information is so buried that it takes a forensic specialist to find it.
The same goes for your service time(s). I’m less than 24 hours removed from a guest who showed up at the right location, but at the wrong time, because he glanced at our website, saw the service times for one campus, and assumed those times applied to all campuses. And this happens to us way more than I’m comfortable admitting to you.
2. Where do I go?
Few things heighten a person’s anxiety more than feeling like they’re in the wrong place. That’s why every college professor starts every semester by saying, “This is Econ 101. If you’re not in Econ 101, you should go find your real classroom right now.” (Not that I have personal experience with slinking out of said classroom.)
Your signage matters. Your parking setup matters. Your outdoor greeters matter. Your handoff from guest services to kids matters. What’s familiar to us is often foreign to our guests.
3. What about my kids?
Certainly, this question won’t apply to all of our guests, but it’ll apply to a large percentage of ’em. If they have an infant, what happens if when they disrupt the service? If they have preschoolers or elementary schoolers, what do we offer them (and how would they know)? If they have middle- or high-schoolers, how early can they drop them off and can they pick them up once they hit adulthood? (I kid. Mostly.)
These are questions that should be answered on our website, at our first-time guest tent, by volunteers, and as a part of the service.
4. What do I do?
Let’s pretend that we nail #2. Signage and volunteers and traffic flow is on point, but we can’t stop at the auditorium doors. We need to plan every service with the guest in mind. We need to know when to speak to our guests (and when not to). We need to explain ourselves as we go.
Giving clarity to what we do – and what our guests are invited to do – is a kindness.
5. What does this mean for me?
This question is one a guest likely won’t articulate, but if you answer it, it’ll mean the world – and likely a return visit. Connect the bigger picture of the gospel to their life and marriage and kids and job. Help them see how the church speaks to those issues and come alongside them. Invite them back the following week to continue to be a part of the bigger story.
This week, I encourage you to take a look at the questions you’re answering. Are they the ones your guests are asking?
photo credit: ChatGPT
