Is Your Coffee Hour Chaotic Enough?
Researcher Kirk Hadaway has discovered that coffee hour in rapidly growing Episcopal churches is different than in the average congregation. It tends to be more…
Browsing: Newcomers
Articles
Making Outsiders Feel like Insiders
Growing churches are churches that have learned that God intends for us to be a people for others. The church needs more than its pastor…
The New Realities of Engaging Newcomers
This five-minute video by the Lewis Center’s Lovett H. Weems, Jr., provides an overview of how new people are coming into church communities in different…
10 Best Practice Tips for Hospitality Teams
Fiona Haworth and Jim Ozier, authors of Clip-In: Risking Hospitality in Your Church, offer ten tips for improving the work of your hospitality team and…
Christmas Eve Opportunities for Newcomers
I have discovered over the last several years a surprising source of energy in the preparations for our church’s Christmas Eve worship service. Relative newcomers…
The Ten Minute Rule
The first impression guests leave with determines whether they will be back. So what is it that goes into a good first impression? We interviewed…
Welcoming Newcomers to Your Congregation
How can you best welcome the next newcomer who crosses the threshold of your congregation? Consider Jesus’ call to the disciples. When he said, “Follow…
Wide Welcome: How the Unsettling Presence of Newcomers Can Save the Church
Jessicah Duckworth’s book Wide Welcome speaks to the question of how congregations can best welcome newcomers, engage them in Christian practices, and nurture their faith.…
From Assimilation to Acculturation
I believe that when we talk about the integration of new members into a congregation, we need to embrace the language of acculturation, not assimilation.…
An Open Letter to Churches Seeking New Members
My husband and I moved to the city a few years ago and have been “between churches” ever since. We’ve been to visit quite a…
Top 10 Learnings about Welcoming Newcomers
Churches often define their success in welcoming newcomers by the number of people who become members of their church. At Redeemer we have shifted our…
What about People Who Attend but Don’t Join?
In recent years, I have heard from many pastors who say that they are seeing an increase in the number of worshipers who attend their…
Friendships and Reaching New People
Every church believes itself to be a welcoming and friendly fellowship, but this isn’t always true. If our churches are to become spiritual communities where…
A Single Voice
I had been attending a new church for a little over two months, when something changed. I was active in this church, attending Sunday school…
Building Community in Churches with High Turnover
Jim Somerville draws from his experience teaching at a college to find a helpful approach to the coming and going of church members. Many communities…
