Your Sunday Guest Experience Checklist

I think there are many aspects more important to the health and biblical function of a church than an “excellent guest experience.” Frankly, if we’re really “being” the church in our own lives and as a body, people will know it and Christ will draw them to Himself through it.

At the same time, evaluating a guest experience is one of many ways to determine if the church organization is “firing on all cylinders,” and functioning in these practical aspects to the very best of our ability.

Preparing to welcome guests and members, and planning adequately for the demands of a weekend service schedule, is just practical and necessary. I’ve created this guest experience checklist for a typical Sunday morning routine at church. The list is certainly not comprehensive, and I welcome suggested additions from readers. Read More

This is a good checklist. I have been involved in guest services and hospitality ministry and I speak from experience. However, it makes particular assumptions about a church, which are not true for all churches. These assumptions would have been true for the church in which I was involved for 10 odd years but they would have been only partially true for the small church where I was a service leader and preacher for several years after that. Why? Traditional worship service. No tech team. No sound system. No screens. And so on. Some things on the checklist would have applied; others would have not. This checklist was also compiled for a church that is not in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Churches that are meeting during the pandemic would need to expand this list and to address a laundry list of safety issues.

Before the pandemic a growing trend was the formation of micro-churches--small communities of believers and seekers whose members gather in informal surroundings such as an apartment or house for worship, instruction, prayer, and the sacraments and individually and collectively engage in evangelism and social ministry in the larger community. While the pandemic has slowed down this trend, it is not going away. Micro-churches are meeting online as well as in-person and are finding innovative ways of doing evangelism and social ministry despite COVID-19. They need a guest experience check list of their own. They will also need a safety check list for the foreseeable future.