As I’m sure you’ve noticed these past couple months, the narthex has undergone some transformation. This is the first time since 2013 that it’s been changed. Back then we added the leather/fake leather seating and the brown carpet. The intention was to make a lobby area, like at hotels, with big, comfortable seats, almost like a living room, as well as to absorb sound in a room with a chronic echo.
As the years went by, things got added, until the room became filled. We had book shelves, rows of extra chairs, occasional sign-up tables, etc. It all contributed to a cluttered and somewhat disorganized look.
One of the goals of the worship committee in the strategic plan was to redesign the narthex to be more welcoming for visitors and guests to the church. So a team was created, and so we came up with new plans. The room was going to serve two primary purposs:
1) welcome visitors and make them feel comfortable,
2) facilitate fellowship, conversation, and relationship building after the 10:30am contemporary service.
The first is obvious; people often judge you on first impressions, and lowering anxiety for visitors helps our growth. The second comes from the fact that people rarely make the turn into the fellowship hall, after the second service, for fellowship – like they do after the early service. We’ve had refreshments and coffee outside, which has helped, but the weather isn’t always conducive to that.
But, we had to figure out how to balance those needs with the operations of the church and our ministries. We collect things for local kids, charities, mission projects. We have things that require sign-ups (such as the Maundy Thursday Agape Meal). These are also important. And while online sign-ups and recruiting are the way of the future, responses to those attempts here have been slow. The paper still is king.
So we cleared out all sorts of stuff, removing some things completely and relocating others, such as the Marana Food Bank donation cabinet – which is in the hallway to the fellowship hall. I’m still looking for a good home for the oak memorial book table that sat in the corner by the front door for 22 years. We will still record the names of memorial gifts in it, and keep it in the office, but felt it was not needed there.
The room then looked empty as we started filling it back in with new furniture which, surprise surprise, did not come immediately. I am hoping we’ll have all the chairs and things on back order set up by summer.
The narthex team deliberately wanted to go with a modern look, with a bit of a younger appeal. Hence the tall tables for putting your coffee and refreshments on while you stand and chat, the modern furniture, and hopefully some new coffee supplies.
For sign-ups, I have found that when we put up a table in the narthex right where people come out it blocks off 3/4 of the narthex to fellowship. People rarely walk around a sign-up or recruitment table to converse. Instead, they keep going out the door. Our solution, then, is the large sign-up table now by the windows to the sanctuary. The Rev. Paul Hammar made it out of old pew wood. It stands high to be easy to sign and read standing, and is prominent enough to be seen, yet not in the way of traffic. From now on, all sign-ups will need to be on that table, or outside on the patio if you need a full table. This clears up the old credenza to be the “welcome table” that focuses just on things for visitors (and the credit card machine until we remove it this summer).
It’s always a balance between the needs of the church and the need to welcome. We need people to sign up, and we need visitors to not feel like they’re being recruited the second they walk in the door. I think we have a good one, and it will get better as we continue to live into and make adjustments.
This also applies to the subject of pastoral announcements at the beginning of the service. We need to welcome visitors, make people feel at home in the church, let them know about fellowship and prayer concerns and things that would be of immediate concern for people new to the church. At the same time, we do need people to volunteer for things like clean-up day. What to do?
I have, lately, leaned more and more towards trying to keep the verbal announcements short. It’s easier in the summer than spring. When a lot is going on, every group and every events wants me to mention their project. Sometimes if I forget, I get blamed for the lack of attendance. But I have to balance that with visitors being overwhelmed with information and things-we-want-you-to-do. People’s attention spans are also not great, and more than the first three or four announcements and most have tuned out or will forget. So I have been trying to mention things only the Sunday before, and keep it to all-church events. So I don’t mention when confirmation class is that night, or each committee meeting. Those you have to find in the newsletter and on the church calendar. I do mention special services, all church events, and outreach projects. I think it makes a good impression on visitors to see us doing a lot for the poor and needy.
So if I don’t mention your activity a lot, or try to push it off to later, it’s not because I’m trying to squash anyone’s ministry. It’s that I want visitors to get the best possible first impression, and come back again. If they don’t, we won’t have people to do ministry. But it’s nothing personal.
As for the slides before service….
Each slide is custom-made and runs on the screen (wall) and online on a loop of 15 seconds. This is to get as many slides across people’s eyes, especially online, where we only have 5 minutes of livestream before the service starts. We can be a bit more flexible with how long we run them, and run things a few weeks ahead if we want. I still try not to have too many, so people tune out. Again, these are mostly for big events and projects, or special church-year and liturgical things, such as a new sermon series, feast day, or special services coming up. Because of the short time run, they need to be like billboards, with very few words and obvious graphics. Small fonts, lots of text, complex images, low color contrast, will be hard to see and read. Think what you see on the way to Phoenix: three or four words max and a picture.
Newsletter..
Of course, if everyone read the emailed newsletter and took out their calendars and entered all the church events they were interested in for the month at the beginning of each month, then I wouldn’t have to announce much of anything. But that’s not how it works. Nonetheless, we have a even more flexibility in this publication, as content volume is unlimited. We can put in as many articles as we want. If they’re one paragraph or less, the whole thing usually goes in the email. If it’s longer, we post the full article on the news blog of the church web site, where we can be as long as we want. I do this, rather than publish the full article in the email, so the scrolling does not get so long people stop halfway down. This way people can scroll through the email, and if it piques their attention, they can click the “read more” which takes them to the web site full article.
I make one exception to this: church business. For example, the council minutes, constitutional changes, financial documents – basically all the “how the sausage is made” stuff that’s necessary and important but a big turn-off to a lot of people who disdain “church politics”. While I could respond that every organization everywhere has politics, and every one of them has debates about money and control, somehow in churches it’s a real visitor-chaser-awayer. I also don’t feel those things belong on the web site, for people completely detached from the church to grab, download, and repost out of context. The whole world does not need to know salary information, even in the aggregate with no names. So these sort of internal documents I have put in .pdf form to be downloaded and read by the people getting the email. Yes, they could forward or publicly post it; I can’t control that. But we don’t need to put it out there in a world full of internet trolls.
Our strategies are sure to keep changing as technology and culture keep changing. I appreciate everyone’s patience as we keep trying new things and adapting. It’s my hope that we can continue to put our best foot forward for people visiting the church, while at the same time staying active in our ministries.
Pastor Lars