Years ago at my old church the Baptist Union of Victoria did just that to us (and a number of smaller churches). We didn't know it was going to happen, we didn't know it had happened... that is until they sent us the report. Interesting indeed, and something I think all churches need every couple of years or so to keep us accountable to Christ's mission for the church.

Hey there - I blogged about this blog post http://wp.me/ptSWR-5r (In short. My post is about this post which is about something I did that was inspired by another blog post. Got that? You will after you read my post: http://wp.me/ptSWR-5r) Neil :-)

Great post Kem! Thanks! I have shared this with our champions in the hope that the reasoning behind what we're trying to do will inspire them. As F1 newbies, we're struggling a little to get a cohesive super-team and full department-head buy-in, but I think we'll get there (eventually)

Let me preface what I'm going to say by saying that I'm neither a marketing nor missions genius. At a small church that I used to attend, I was a member of the diaconate. Naturally we were concerned that people who came through our doors for the first time would have a sufficiently positive experience so as to come back time and again. This wasn't a numbers game to simple get more people warming pews (and dropping coins in the offering plate), but to ensure that there was sufficient opportunity for them to become connected to a community, be ministered to and be discipled. There was just one problem. We weren't particularly welcoming. As much as they should have, our people weren't reaching out to visitors and newcomers and striking up conversations so as to begin connecting with people. A welcoming policy was the answer. As a diaconate we put in place and enacted a policy whereby we (the deacons) would identify any visitors/newcomers and go say good-morning to them (and strike up a conversation). Cold and clinical? Maybe. But what it was, was a policy that kept us accountable to a Gospel mandate that we should be welcoming. Doing this was the difference in having a reputation of being warm and welcoming verses being cold and rude. I think I can hazard a guess as to which reputation Christ would like His church to have, and by having the correctly policies in place we can manage (or steward, if you prefer) it, so as to honor Him and the mission of the church.

Yeah I gotta totally agree with Rich. In fact, as much as this is true regardless of the client (church or secular), it also applies equally to the service being provided. From IT perspective it's the same story. Funnily enough as a church IT guy I'm plugged in enough to what going on in IT (especially church IT through http://citrt.org) to know how IT can serve the mission of the church. Pastors are (or should be) good at pastoring. Communications gurus are good at communicating. And IT geeks are good at IT. Interesting that pastors don't try to tell the church accountant how to balance the books