Beyond the First Visit: The Complete Guide to Connecting Guests to Your Church

Beyond the First Visit: The Complete Guide to Connecting Guests to Your Church | Gary L. McIntosh | Practical Advice for Churches

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Beyond the First V...

	Beyond the First Visit: The Complete Guide to Connecting Guests to Your Church Gary L. McIntosh Baker Books, 2006 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

All churches like to think that theirs is the friendliest in town. But do visitors see it that way? Church consultant Gary McIntosh invites readers to take a look at their church through the eyes of visitors and potential visitors. His starting point, grounded in an understanding of God as a "welcomer," is that churches should see those who enter their doors as not merely visitors, but as guests, and themselves as gracious hosts. This practical book offers sound advice on assessing and improving the ways in which churches attract people, welcome them, do follow-up, and bring them into the church family. It also offers suggestions for making a welcoming attitude part of the very fabric of the local church.

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Great Resource

As I am preparing to launch a new church is has been a valuable tool in my organizing efforts.

Practical Advice for Churches

The title of McIntosh's compelling book shoud be an eye-catcher for anyone concerned about how their church looks to visitors--or guests, as the author puts it. He offers thoughtful, practical ideas about church people in churchs of all sizes. This book is a compelling read and a great starting point for discussions.

Makes you think

This book really makes you think about what you and/or are not doing at your church. We go through "church" without really thinking about guests/visitors. We often treat people like visitors - thanks for coming, come again if you want, but you're not really part of the "family". We should treat them like guests - we want them and want them to come back and most importantly, we want them to become part of the family.

The book makes you look at your church with new lenses.

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Great in Context

I would definitely recommend Beyond the First Visit to those looking to systematically think through their process of welcoming & inviting new comers into your church community.

GOOD- It is comprehensive in scope, full of helpful ideas and information, and forces you to ask very helpful questions in a systematic fashion. It will fill your head with ideas and help you see how one set of ideas leads to another.

NEEDS WORK- Internet, email, SMS, Facebook- all these sorts of new technologies are largely untapped in McIntosh's practical examples. If you are familiar with these, McIntosh's framework will still likely give you many good ideas that you can adapt to these technologies. It is also not as aware as we need to be of not only the "Emergent Church", but even more of the general mindset of postmodern adults and how their attitudes would lead you to modify some of what McIntosh presents.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS- Be aware of your theological convictions and framework - e.g. on evangelism, nature of man, the Sovereignty of God, nature of the church, etc. - before you get too far into this book. This is not a theological work; it is a practical one. But all practice is controlled by theology, and if you are not thoughtful in reading this book, you can end up with a very man-centered, self-reliant approach to "assimilation" and church growth.

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Disappointing Recyling of Material

The cover promises to offer the reader a complete guide to church hospitality, and is written by well know church growth scholar Gary McIntosh.

If you have NEVER picked up a book on welcoming visitors, this can be a helpful introduction.

This book does have some strengths in looking at the visitor flow of your church.

Attracting Visitors -- Getting them to come.
Welcoming Visitors -- The art of Hospitality, dealing with first impressions and service.

But there are better books on the market Such as FusionFusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church

How do YOU welcome a visitor

McIntosth begins with reminder of how important it is for churches to welcome the visitors that come.

He asks: How do you react differently between a guest and a visitor?

A guest is invited, expected, and thus you make sure the house is clean and in order.

A visitor shows up unexpectedly, uninvited, and typically when you're doing laundry or dressed in your painting clothes.

McIntosh encourages the church to think through how it welcomes guests, to review what it thinks about guests, and to encourage churches to see themselves through the eyes of a guest.

In the 2nd chapter, he reminds of how to be a great host. Welcoming guests doesn't happen accidentally, but on purpose with some careful planning and attention to the process (which is where a consultant can help you).

He cites research from the 80s that churches need to keep 25 to 30 percent of their first time visitors to grow rapidly, while churches that only keep 5 to 8 percent will decline.

Assuming those numbers are still current, let's settle on a average of 16%. How many visitors does your church need to grow?

What is the first impression of your parking lot, your building.

Signage? Upkeep of the Building?

First impressions -- Do visitors have a positive interaction with the people in the church?

Disappointments
Though McIntosh offers some excellent advice, most of it is clearly dated, and most of the supporting research is from the early 1990s. Most all the footnotes cite citations before the year 1995, the majority of which stretch all the way back to the 70s. I kept feeling like I was reading late 1980s church growth stuff all over again.

Our society may have changed, but this book doesn't have any current research to make sure those conclusions are still valid.

I've read widely on assimilating visitors, and if you have as well, you'll find this book disappointing.

It has a throw away chapter about the emergent church that feels like an attempt at being current and not really relevant to the book. A few times I had to perservere through rabbit trails that had very little to do with welcoming visitors (for example, a whole chapter on launching new ministries).

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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