Another Experiment

I mentioned a Q&A experiment we're trying this weekend in my Mid-Week Memo yesterday. But there's another experiment we're launching on the weekend. Your grasp of what we're trying to do is essential to its success.

What you're going to see is an extended greeting time (from about 20 seconds to more than a minute). Hearing this may make you sigh, run for the hills or roll your eyes, but we'll make it as easy as we can on you by giving you a simple ice breaker question. This week's question: "What's your favorite food at a graduation party?" Simple. Painless. Vitally important!

This will work only if you, our core who reads this blog, embraces its purpose and follows our instructions. Here's the key: Always look first to greet someone you don't know and reconnect for a moment after the service. If new folks are ignored, we'll hear about it and this experiment will end. But if new folks are welcomed in this way, I am convinced it will have a huge impact on people who need to know they are welcomed.

Think about some typical first-guest profile:

• Someone who is giving "church" a chance again after years of absence. This person has a Christian in their lives that loves them deeply, lives in another state and has been praying for this day for years.
• A lonely family transferred here from a warm weather state. 
• A friend you've been reaching out to for years who decided to come but didn't let you know...and you are gone for that weekend!

What if they are warmly and personally greeted? And after being greeted someone brings them down to 10-Minute Connect and introduces them to me?

I might be talking about this in my message, but that will be after the greeting time, so I want you to have a heads-up.

• Look for someone you don't know.
• Introduce yourself by name.
• Ask them if they're new to Five Oaks.
• Share your answer to the question. 
• Reconnect after the service and see how the Spirit leads you.

Tomorrow I'll share an email I received recently that helped us pull the trigger on something like this after talking about for a long time. Be ready to be the church to someone this weekend.

Comments

[CarrieAnn Standfest]

Henry I love the thoughts behind this. We have been working on introducing ourselves to "new" faces for a few months now and have met some pretty cool people. One thing that has helped put us at ease and avoided those "awkward" moments was to ask not "are you new to five oaks?" but to instead phrase the question "How long have you been coming to five oaks?" This has helped tremendously when greeting "new" faces that have been going to five oaks longer than we have! ;-)

[Henry]

Great idea. We'll adopt it.