Growth Ideas 101: Great Greeting (September 10, 2025)

Are your greeters ready? If you have one or two people who greet, increase the positive impact by creating a team. Encourage and equip all people in your congregation to increase their comfort in greeting others, deepening relationships and creating connections. Imagine if everyone stretched their comfort and took time to speak with one more person than feels usual. Make sure all of your community of faith learn to say good morning to all they see in the parking lot. Have a door greeter who opens the door, offers welcome and introduces themselves, saying their name, learning names of visitors or people they do not know, or need a refresher on remembering their name. Do you have name tag greeters, offering name tags to all arriving, ready to create new ones for any visitors (don’t forget to include pronouns)? Provide some training with possible greeting words. Nothing more awkward than a greeter so kindly asking “is this your first time here?” only to be told it is their third or fourth visit. Learn how we can reduce those awkward moments! When a person identifies it is there first time, be ready with your visitor package, and introduce them to another greeter who can show them around, get them comfortable, introduce them to others, answer questions and help them to a seat that suits the visitors. Thinking outside the box, one community of faith moved coffee and muffins outside, stationed at a picnic table by the road, serving conversation and refreshments for thirty minutes before worship. It is so successful even when church closed for a few weeks in the summer, people decided to continue with their outside fellowship time. Consider the connections and comfort building for the after worship fellowship. Share your out of the box ideas and best practices, experiments to connect and how greeting is great at your community of faith. I can help you to renew and create great greeting practices customizing to your context.