What Helps Them?
in the world of guest services, our goal is to be proactive, not reactive. That means that we never want a guest to feel the need to ask a question, look for a volunteer, or...
Category: Guest Services
Not For Us.
Not long ago I read Dave Browning’s book Deliberate Simplicity: How the Church Does More by Doing Less. In it, he tells the story of his church paving the parking lot. It was the early...
Q&A: When Helping Guests Acclimate, How Much is Too Much?
Q: How much is too much when it comes to introducing guests to people, showing them around, and giving them information? (question submitted during a recent One-Day Workshop) A: The “How much is too much”...
Guest Services Doesn’t Have to be Either / Or.
When you start getting serious about creating a welcoming environment for the outsider, you’re going to stir up a range of emotions for the insider. Some will be excited (“Finally…I can invite my unchurched friend...
…But Did You See the Gorilla?
You’re likely familiar with the Invisible Gorilla Test, a 1999 study where researchers asked participants to watch a brief video of people passing a basketball. Subjects were told to count the number of times that...
You Don’t Have to Be a Five-Star Restaurant to Create a Five-Star Experience.
Much has been made of the cultural icon that is White Castle. We tend to dismiss the tiny square burgers that are colloquially referred to as “gut bombs.” White Castle is never going to make...
Be Kind, Be Firm: Setting Expectations for Your Guest Services Systems
We’ve either been there, or we will be: “there” is that moment when a regular attendee is cheating the system you’ve set up for your guests, or for a certain demographic of your congregation. For...
Pave Where the People are Walking
My friend Justin Waples shared this video with me, and it’s good enough to share with you: Designer Tom Hulme introduces us to the concept of desire paths, or the natural “point A to point...
How Does a Hospitable Culture Apply to a Counseling Ministry?
We’re in an ongoing series called Hospitable Culture. The big question is this: What if hospitality isn’t something we do, it’s simply who we are? In other words, what if we could bump hospitality beyond...
2024 Year in Review: Posts
The last week of the year is one of my favorites on social media (and let’s be honest, it’s hard to use “social media” and “favorites” in the same sentence these days). I love it...
