One of the most difficult tasks for a church is making visitors feel comfortable. Here’s what you can do to help visitors – before and after – they enter your doors.
I believe one of the most difficult tasks for a church is making visitors feel comfortable.
The difficulty lies in the fact that every person is unique in their needs and desires. Some want to be warmly welcomed and shown around.
Others just want to slip in an out unnoticed until they are ready to reveal themselves.
However there is one commonality that can make every visitor very uncomfortable. That is the feeling of being lost.
For most people anyplace that is new and different can be, and often is intimidating. If the experience is visiting a large unfamiliar church – that visit can be overwhelming. And even being a guest at a small local church can be scary.
So what can you do to make that visitor feel more comfortable – before and after – they enter your doors?
Give them an experience before the visit.
People feel more comfortable if they know what to expect.
A number of churches do a good job on their website, explaining what attire is expected and giving a little narrative about what to do or where to go. But why not give people more of an experience on your website?
A church that I am working with is putting together a visitor experience for their website that includes a fly thru with a drone. The drone video will take the visitor from the parking lot thru the entrance, show the visitor center, coffee area, restroom locations and children’s area.
The idea is to stage it so it looks like a Sunday morning. So there would be people in the building, making it look as life like as possible.
I love this idea!
Now if drone footage is not possible for you to get on your website, add a floor plan and pictures.
The more comfortable you can make someone feel the more likely they are to walk thru your doors on a Sunday morning.
Guide their Sunday church experience
For me one of the frustrating things in life is not knowing where to go when I walk thru the door of a building.
The problem for the person designing the wayfinding is that they do know where I want to go or what my level of “knowing” about that building or similar buildings are.
So to make signage work well, the designer of the wayfinding system must take a lot of different variables into account.
Even though there are a lot of variables some very simple truths hold true.
The first is to keep signs clear and concise. Don’t make people have to think or interpret what the message is. One of the many great laughs I had at the last WFX in Louisville, KY a few months ago was over this conference center sign.
One of my friends saw the sign and called me over and said, I guess no miracles allowed here because they won’t let Jesus walk on water. Thus we created the meme
Really wayfinding is a pretty straight forward proposition and with some thought and planning it doesn’t have to be subpar.
What is good wayfinding at your church facility?
Wayfinding is really a simple problem solving exercise:
1) The person needs to know where they are at (i.e. main entrance)
2) They need to know where they want to go (i.e. childrens ministries)
3) They need to find out the route that will get them there
4) They have to be able to correctly follow the route
5) The have to know when they get to the destination
To solve these simple problems with the use of signs:
1) Keep it simple
2) Show only what is needed, don’t overly complicate directions or maps
3) Give clues along the way to keep people on the route.
In addition to having good signage there should also be a person at the welcome area that is very good at giving directions.
The person giving directions should have some simple nice looking floor plans printed on paper. The direction giver can then draw on the map and point out landmarks along the way.
Another great way to solve the problem of giving directions is to have someone available that will lead the person to where they want to go.
In numerous churches I have been at the children’s check in area is usually the most difficult to find and the most difficult to figure out what to do when you get there.
So having an advocate (guide) that can take a family to the children’s area and then walk them thru the check in process would help make a lot of first time visitors feel much more relaxed and comfortable.
Wayfinding really doesn’t have to be a frustrating, difficult thing.
With some good signage and some people available to assist newcomers. You can easily make all of your guests feel comfortable.
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