What’s Your Baseline of Care?
Everyone has one. Whether you’re a paid staff member or an unpaid volunteer, whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a newbie, whether you know your job description backwards and forwards or you’re just trying to...
Category: Guest Services
Triage Your Team: How to Make the Most of a Low Weekend
Every leader has been there: the Saturday night phone call. The Sunday morning text message. The inexplicable half-dozen who obviously collaborated and decided they were picking this weekend to be no-shows. At some point, we’re...
Covid-Friendly, Congregationally-Friendly, or Community-Friendly?
This weekend, most of us will be hitting the one-year mark from when all of our churches moved online. We’ve learned a lot since March of 2020. New ways of ministry have been introduced that...
Church Caste Systems Feel Great. Dismantle Them Anyway.
You remember the concept of caste system from seventh grade, right? There’s a societal hierarchy that’s nearly impossible to break out of. You’re stuck in the situation you’re born into. I’m afraid it’s possible for...
Make the Connection. Keep the Connection.
A first-time guest is a fragile guest. They are on high alert for anything that feels familiar and safe, and have a low tolerance for anything that pushes them out of their comfort zone. That’s...
2020 Year in Review: Posts
It’s that week where everybody and their mama starts cranking out top ten lists like a pre-bearded David Letterman. As you might’ve guessed, the vast majority of this year’s most-read posts had something to do...
Hospitality is the New Apologetic
Maybe you’ve noticed that our society is just a bit divided. Whether it’s political persuasions, social justice issues, or even the dreaded Starbucks vs. Dunkin’ debate, we’ve all become experts in drawing a line in the sand,...
A Very COVID Christmas
We made it to December, y’all. And now that the last of the leftovers have mercifully disappeared and the decorations have emerged from the attic, it’s time to turn our attention to Christmas services. In...
It’s Not (Just) About the Mask
Last weekend I led a guest services training for a church in another state. Between the time my flight landed and the start of my speaking engagement, I had some extra time to swing by...
Values: The Outro
Recently our church rolled out a set of four values that define our mission. These are not new values, just updated ways of expressing the principles that have guided us since our inception in 2002....
