That Critical First Impression

By Robin G. Jordan

This week I have posted links to two articles on the importance of making a good first impression on first time visitors to a church. The two articles reminded me of the struggles that churches may go through to make that critical positive first impression that will cause these guests to return again and again.

Ideally a church should not have to be intentional about making a good first impression because in being the church it is doing everything right. But in reality we have to be deliberate about what we do. We want to create a good impression from the moment that would-be guests click on our church website to the moment they pull out of our church parking lot. More importantly, we want the good impression that we create to reflect who we really are as a church. If we are putting on an act, sooner or later they will discover it.

I have been involved in a number of churches over the years—new church plants as well as established churches. I have spent a good part of my life in pioneering new churches. When I was an infant, one of the first churches that I attended with my mother, my older brother, and my grandparents was a new mission that held its services in a corrugated iron Nissen hut. I have no memories of the time but I do remember the church after it moved into its new building, which doubled as a community hall.* Folding panels separated the liturgical area—communion table, pulpit, etc.—from the rest of the hall and were shut when the hall was used for children’s parties and other community activities. The congregation sat on folding wooden chairs which were apt to collapse with a loud bang, startling the babies in the congregation. The building is still in use. The Anglican congregation that meets there describes itself on its website as “evangelical and charismatic.”

I do not believe that I began to fully appreciate the importance of making a good first impression until I returned to the Episcopal Church in the early 1980s after having drifted away from the church while I was a university student. But even during my college years I had an inkling of its importance.

I was confirmed later than most of the young people who attended my parish church. As I recollect, I took my confirmation rather seriously. I was disappointed in the preparation that my fellow confirmands and I received for our confirmation. It was not what I had expected. The focus was on being a good churchman rather than a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. However, I went off to college enthused about having made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and eager to grow as a Christian. Like a number of other mainline and evangelical denominations, the Episcopal Church had a student center near the campus. Unlike the student centers of these denominations, the Episcopal Student Center was locked as tight as a drum except on Wednesdays when the Canterbury Club met.

Canterbury Club meetings consisted of a Holy Communion service, followed by a fried chicken dinner. The rector of the local Episcopal parish presided at the communion service and the women of the church provided the dinner. There was no sermon, just communion. The dinner menu never varied—fried chicken, tomato and letter salad, mayonnaise dressing, rolls, and butter. I do not remember if they served dessert.

My first impression was not a good one. After attending two or three meetings I stopped going. I envied the Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, and Roman Catholic students whose centers were open every day.

The message that the locked Episcopal student center conveyed to me was that the Episcopal Church did not care about its students away at college, not enough to give them with opportunities to grow spiritually or even a quiet place to study. The sermon-less communion services conveyed the impression that it did not care enough about them to offer them a word of encouragement.

How different was my former parish church when I returned after an absence of almost 10 years. The usher handing out worship bulletins in the narthex was big guy with a broad smile who exuded welcome. The members of the congregation also appeared genuinely glad to see me. The parish had grown since I had left. It was bustling with energy. There were a lot of new faces. There were also plenty of opportunities for ministry and spiritual growth.

I would become involved in number of ministries. I eventually was invited to serve as worship coordinator for the launch team that planted the church where I served as senior lay reader for 15 years. While the new church was launched as a satellite congregation of the parish, the intention was that it should not become a “chapel of ease” for parishioners in the community in which it was launched. Rather it should become a mission of the diocese and then a parish in its own right. Throughout the time I served at the church, not just during its early years, the realization that first impressions really do matter was brought home to me again and again.

During our early years as a mission the other churches of the diocese treated us as a convenient dumping ground for whatever they wanted to get rid but did not know how to dispose of. Or they simply could not bring themselves to send them to the garbage incinerator or land fill where they should have been rightly sent. We had donated to us tattered, dog-eared Prayer Books and hymnals often with missing pages and ripped covers. We chose not to use them, knowing that they would have made a very poor impression on visitors to our services.

Worshiping in a storefront also brought out the worst tendencies in certain members of the congregation. Among the suggestions was that we cover the windows with plastic film that would make them resemble stained glass windows and hang ornamental crosses and other religious doodads from the area’s Christian bookstores on the walls. People who showed a very refined sense of taste in the decoration of their homes lost that sense of taste when it came to the appointments of the room in which they worshiped.

We would end up with an antique lectern that was always in danger of toppling over because the founding pastor of the new church thought that it had “character.” Our vicar who was later installed as the church’s rector was not able to pass up anything that was free. We also ended up with a dozen or more white enamel wedding chapel candle stands, several dozen wooden straight-back chairs, and several dozen faded red velvet hassocks, or kneeling cushions. When we moved into the first building of our own, the wedding chapel candle stands were stored in the attic. To my knowledge they were never used in the 15 years that I served at the church.

 Members who regularly attended services at the church were encouraged to sit on the straight-back chairs and to leave the more comfortable, padded stacking chairs for first time visitors and newcomers. My nieces and I and later my grandnephew and I made a point of sitting in them in order to set a good example for the other members.

The hassocks soon joined the wedding chapel candle stands in the attic. It was discovered that in order to kneel on one of them, a worshiper needed something to hold onto such as the back of a chair. However, the chair was apt to tip over backwards as the worshiper was lowering herself onto the hassock. The hassocks were small and the worshiper could easily slip off the hassock and land painfully on her knees.

The vicar also accepted a gift of a wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin, which was placed in a planter next to the main entrance of the building. This was not surprising since he was a former Roman Catholic who became an Episcopalian when he married his wife who was a Methodist.

I have been involved in six other church plants since that time—three that were successful and three that were not, and my involvement in these new works has reinforced in my own mind how critical a visitor’s first impression is. Over and over again I have heard accounts of how a positive first impression led to a first time visitor returning, how the return visit reinforced that impression, and led to further visits and eventually greater involvement in the church. I have also heard the stories of those who visited a church and chose not to return because of a negative first impression.

For a little over two years I have been involved in a small Anglican church located in a community about a half an hour’s drive from Murray. During this time I learned how difficult it can be for some churches to make a favorable first impression with first time visitors. The building may be clean and well-maintained. The grounds may be well-kept.. The congregation may be friendly. However, the size and age of the congregation, the near-empty parking lot, the congregation’s preferences in music and worship, and the lack of a children’s ministry can create obstacles that are not easy to overcome. A tactless remark made by a member to another member in the hearing of a visitor or made to the visitor can also contribute to an unfavorable first impression. Having few visitors a small church can become insensitive to visitors.

For such churches, however, it is even more important for them to make a positive first impression. It is a matter of life or death. If they make a positive first impression, the visitor may tell friends, neighbors, relatives, and colleagues and they may also visit the church. On the other hand, if they make a negative first impression, the visitor is even more likely to tell these people and they will avoid the church.

*After I wrote this article, I did some investigating. According to a Stevenidge community website St. Peter's Church's present building was constructed in 1945 and dedicated ten years later in 1955. My mother and my grandparents talked about how the church had originally met in a Nissen hut and I concluded from what they said that they were talking about the church after I was born. They had lived at Welwyn during the war and had moved to Stevenidge when I was an infant. Welwyn was the name of a house that my grandparents owned. My mother was a teacher at the St. Nicholas Church of England Primary and Elementary School , which was the first school that I attended. One explanation is that construction was begun on the building in 1945 but was not completed until later. 10 years is a long time to delay the dedication of a building.