Strategic Consideration: Personality

Q: What does your church communicate about your church.

A: A lot.

Whether you realize it or not, your building and your ministry 'style' (what people see when they walk in the door) communicates a lot about your church, its values and its priorities.

Let's evaluate:

• Churches that don't have a clear, visible and centrally located information center send a loud message to first-time guests.
  
• Churches with dilapidated children's rooms are telling guests they don't really care about their kids. This is heightened if the church has obviously spent some money on the worship space to the neglect of the other areas. Church that use cardboard boxes for tables in the kids rooms while running a building campaign for their new auditorium shouldn't wonder why they can't keep young families. (True story)
  
• If volunteers and children's workers aren't in place when guests arrive you are communicating something your values. FYI, guests typically arrive early; its the veterans that know they can come late without missing anything. If your volunteers aren't on time, don't expect people to be inside and seated when worship begins.
• If you display a map of the world with dots on other countries but have nothing indicating partnerships within your own community you are sending a message... and I shouldn't have to tell you what that message is.
  
• If your church has its own school... well, you figure it out.
  
• If you speak behind a pulpit on a platform yards away from the congregation and your pastor sits on the platform away from the people you might be sending a message. Please don't preach about community until you fix that.
• If the parking spots closest to the door are reserved for staff you are communicating something about your values.
• Iniviting newcomers to Sunday School is a lot different than inviting them to a LifeGroup. Schools attract learners and foster information.

What you do and how you do it says a lot about who you are and what you value. One of the coolest things I'm seeing right now is churches moving into neighborhoods and intentionally spending less on their facility so that they can spend more on their ministry. Churches that retro-fit an existing space so that they can stay local instead of buying land on the outskirts of town are saying something to their neighbors. I know of one church that is leading a campaign to re-vitilize their community; not by running the lower class out, but by giving them a hand making their homes and their community safe and inviting. I know of another church that built a community center first which just happened to second as an auditorium on the weekend - and FYI, their community center wasn't a basketball court for church members to use; it was a food pantry and clothes closet.

What you do and how you do it says a lot about who you are what you value. So what does your church say about you?