Doug Lawrence of ChurchCentral.com offers 3 unique ideas for shaking up your service. Especially touching is the video about the end of a particular Methodist ministry.

When I was a child, I thought as a child, and had lots of ideas, but when I grew up and worked in a church, I was afraid to have an original thought of any kind. Have you ever had the feeling you’re just parroting another church instead of being a church?

Innovation on your own, however, can be deadly when it means you end up just trying something new for newness sake. I’ve met dozens of church leaders through my years of ministry who feel compelled to keep casting new vision every 30 seconds. Maybe they’re trying to defend their salaries, or impress their colleagues, or worse, divert attention away from previous failed initiatives.

Continue reading.

Worship leader David Santistevan writes the article you wish every potential musician in your church could read.

Recently I visited a church where I had to jump over a few unnecessary hurdles before I finally took my seat in their worship service. Does your church have any of these barriers to visitors?

Ineffective website. Right off the bat, I almost couldn’t find this church’s website – it showed up as the 160th listing on a Google search for local churches (I access a marketing statistic website that tells me such things – how does your church rank?) That’s several pages into the search, and studies show people don’t usually click past the first page of results.

A good website is a VITAL first contact for a potential visitor! I want to get to know the pastor, staff and get a taste of the service. This church’s website had no pictures of the staff, building or auditorium (the only way I could see where I was going was to find the building on Google Street View.) A church logo was non-existent – the website was a plain, generic WordPress page with a Times New Roman font for the name of the church.

The website did had a few podcasts from recent sermons. A blog or welcome by the pastor would also go a long way to helping me feel a connection.

No sign out front. I drove to the church’s location and was surprised to not see a sign. Was I in the right place? I’ve probably driven by the church building 100 times, and since it’s in an old warehouse, I never knew it was a church! I suspected I was in the right place because of all the cars in the adjacent parking lot. Then as I parked my car I saw a sign on the side of the building facing a side road (but no sign BY the road.)

No greeters. I walked into the church and stood in the lobby, spinning around with a blank look on my face as I tried to figure out which door led to the sanctuary. It was like the old game show “Let’s Make a Deal” where you pick one of three mystery doors. Nobody was around to help me find my way, no signs, nothing. A bunch of kids were entering door #1 so I guessed that wasn’t right… then I saw adults going in door #2 so I followed them down a hallway to the sanctuary entrance.

Afer all this I expected to enter a room with 10 people sitting in a circle on folding chairs. To my complete shock I entered a large auditorium that was literally packed with about 500 people and experienced a wonderful service filled with life (500 attendees in a town like Greenville, SC with a church literally on every corner is quite an accomplishment for a young church.) I felt like I was on a treasure hunt! You really have to want to go to this place since they put so many obstacles in your way. If this church had a descriptive website, a sign out front and somebody to welcome you as you walked in the front door, I bet they’d be running 2,000 people by now.

Bottom Line: It’s the little foxes that spoil the vine – don’t do dumb things that put obstacles in the way of people who want to attend your church.