Unwelcome: 50 Ways Churches Drive Away First-Time Visitors

I met Jonathan Malm a few years back at one of the Salt conferences in Nashville while interning at a large church. I think I sat in on his ProPresenter/Backgrounds/Typefaces session. And that's when I knew that he and I thought similarly about the modern church. I purchased this partly out of curiosity because I know Jonathan has incredible insights, and partly as a tool to help the new church I'm on staff at.Okay, enough of that - this book is GREAT and here's why:1) It's packed with content, but not in an overwhelming way.It's true - Jonathan has 50 ideas to improve the way your church functions on a given morning where guests may attend. Each idea is no more than 4 pages, in fact, most are about 2 pages in length. I found myself reading 10 or so at a time, jotting notes and questions to bring before my senior pastor at our weekly meetings. I'll be bringing my questions each week for several weeks to come - giving each proper attention.2) It's not too specific, but not too broad.There's a great balance in the presentation of these ideas. Generally it'll start with a wide brushstroke idea, then lay out some more pointed thoughts on the topic.3) This is a book that EVERY church needs to read - and read with an open mind.They say you have an outside perspective of your organization until you've been involved with it for about 6 months. After that, you're an insider, and unfortunately, can become blind to ways your experience is inadvertently doing strange things that adversely affect a visitors desire to return. If you're like me, the idea that a visitor could show up, experience something totally jarring that you overlooked, and high tail it out of your church forever is highly concerning - and perhaps happens more than we like to think it does. Lord, forgive us for the ways we turn people away from You. That's where it's tough, I think. People attend a church because they like it. The insiders don't recognize a need to improve things because its familiar and comfortable to them. This book is our outside perspective! But you have to be willing to approach it with a Kingdom mindset, not in a defensive-of -our-church's-structure kind of way.4) The stories added really hit home.Jonathan adds a lot of firsthand experiences to the conversation. Stories about great experiences as a first time attender, and some really eye-opening stories of bad first time experiences. Hearing some of the very odd things churches do, somewhat thoughtlessly, sparked a resolve in me not to let that happen at my church on my watch.No joke - one time I was visiting a church and was greeted by a guy with a huge fluffy beard and handlebar mustache wearing in a Scottish kilt. Needless to say, first impression was very odd... guys in skirts.... Then 10 seconds later, an usher pegged me as a guest and ran off to retrieve for me the most giant welcome gift wrapped in bouquet style fluorescent yellow cellophane. Awesome. No sneaking in and hiding in the back row now. EVERYONE knew I was an outsider as I entered the sanctuary....My second visit to this church, they were playing 80s hair metal as pre-service music........ o_0It's a good thing I'm very comfortable in the church!But lets be real - the un-churched are probably NOT comfortable in the church.Listen - if you read this book and think "This isn't for my church. We're not a giant seeker-friendly mega church." then you need to realize you WILL need to translate some of it to the culture of your church. As I was going through it I asked myself "Is this valuable to my church?" and if I said no, it wasn't because the ideas were bad, but rather that my church wasn't at a place for them yet OR that we were already taking great strides in that area to make the experience excellent.Big church or small, it's important to step back and evaluate your quirks. This is a book I plan to read yearly to continue to bring our best. The introduction of this book says it all - and the whole point is not just to create a warm welcome, a friendly atmosphere, a seamless experience, and call it good - the whole point is to do everything within our abilities to prepare an unhindered way for people to connect with God at our churches.I think about the old Gandhi quote "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." and can't help but think it applies here too. Guests might be looking for hope and healing, walking into our churches as a last resort... but His people and the place they created might look uninviting, careless to their visitor's needs, an exclusive only to those who "fit" the demographic of the religious country club we often make it.Let's not be thoughtless to our guests!Thank you Jonathan for this great book - we plan to use a lot of it to train our hospitality volunteers.

I bought this because trying to get a copy via inter-library loan failed. My library staffer told me that no Texas member of inter-library loan owned a copy, and although there were copies in libraries in Wisconsin, Indiana and Tennessee, none of them were willing to send it. Perhaps that's because it is a modest paperback, or they consider it a reference work, or those staffs are mean or lazy, this attempt to get my hands on it for free was frustrating. So I bought it from Amazon. Our church, a liberal Christian congregation in a city of 100,000, has been here for 120 years, but is down to a couple of hundred aging regular attendees, in a downtown location, with structural troubles. Our new pastor has the burden of helping us decide whether to sell and relocate to a newer neighborhood, or fix up what we have and try to recruit more diverse members from the neighborhoods closer to our own. I thought, after reading 75 reviews of Rev. Malm's little book, that the tips on making first-time visitors welcome might be useful to our staff. And after reading it, I still think most of his advice is sound, most of it fits churches even of our size. The book seems expensive for its sixe, but there are not very many wasted words in it...the author says common sense things like have greeters who are truly helpful without smothering the first-time guests, have good signage all over the building, have safe paths to other rooms or buildings, have parking attendants, don't let the pastor start getting away with 45-minute sermons, recruit a good praise band or do without, recruit a good video and sound operator or do without, don't overstuff the bulletins, make sure the old-timers are trained as to how to not scare off newbies, etc. I don't regret purchasing this, and have donated it to the pastoral staff.

Why require 20 words or more, it might not take 20 words or more. Just a review is sufficient okay. “It was good okay, enough is enough.”

The title of the book clearly explains the message. It outlines 50 somewhat different ways churches do things that could potentially make first time guests feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. If you are looking for a book on who the church is for, this is not it. If you want to improve guest experiences this book is worth a read.Pros:Easy to read and short. I finished it in less than 2 hours.Good, vivid real life illustrations that highlight the point.Author shows a genuine love for the de-churched and unchurched.ConsMajority of points are large church kind of issues. Not enough for small churches.The distinction between some points is blurry. It could have easily been 35 ways instead of 50. It felt repetitive at times.Could tell without reading the author's bio that it came from a worship leader's perspective. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the clear focus of many points was on worship.

I am the pastor of a church founded in 1747. I have been hired at a time in the life of the congregation that we need to think seriously about what it is that attracts people to a church, and what it is that helps to keep them coming back. Thank you for this thoughtfully written and helpful text. As it was said in the movie, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, "In the end it will be wonderful; if it is not yet wonderful, then it is not the end!"

If you ever find the perfect church, you should probably leave... these are the wise words i heard a long time ago. I can't help but feel this book sums up whats wrong with church, church people and society. Although there are some really good stories in this book, that I completely connected to I got about half way through and thought 'actually this feels really sad.' The author sees so many faults in the examples of church that there is nothing about how God can overcome and how we should have more faith and seek his guidance. Church turns into a 'consumerist product' and it just didn;t sit right... the author to their own admittance says towards the end of the book about how they've been to a church that does all the right things and it all feels, looks and smells great but it just wasn't happening... by all means there are some good tips about improvement but be aware without God you may as well open your church up as a supermarket!

Actually, a great little book that is worth reading. 50 short readable chapters covering the building, entrance, services, people, worship leaders etc. Only thing stopping it getting 5 stars is that it is written from an American perspective and British culture and practice occasionally differs. I enjoyed it and will be passing it around various other leaders.

Good reading, useful info.

This book does a great job covering all areas of church life and how it can be a tool to attract the unchurched or push them away. I especially enjoyed how every chapter came to a practical conclusion. It will serve to be a crucial guide for improving church quality and ultimately striving to fulfill the great commission.

Read only a part of the manuscript, looks good so farThanks