Opening the Front Door, Closing the Back Door – Herbert Cooper

Seven keys to Opening the Front Door

Herbert Cooper1. Use weekend worship gatherings

Remember that every Sunday is someone’s first Sunday. The regular attendee’s perspective changes when they invite someone to a gathering.

Focus on relevant + practical teaching.

Ensure that your programming is excellent. Excellence eliminates distractions.

2. Get your people fired up to reach their friends & family

In everything you do, build trust with attendees.

Honest evaluations are vital. Every church suffers from “Insiderness“. A church’s natural gravitational pull is inward.

One of my # 1 jobs is to keep the church’s focus outward.

3. Kids and Student Ministry can be front doors

Invest in these key ministries with money and quality volunteers

4. Build a Front Door Team

This can be either Staff or Volunteers.

Focus on the Front Door before Back Door. Create some chaos, then figure out how to manage it.

5. Facilities can open the Front Door.

Facilities can facilitate momentum (Not create. If you don’t already have some momentum, a new facility will be a burden, not a boon.)

6. Adding Gatherings can open the Front Door

New gatherings create growth, excitement and momentum. Starting new gatherings on-site has huge advantages over starting a new site.

  1. Serve 1, worship 1: Multiple gatherings = opportunities serve. At People’s Church, those who worship in one gathering volunteer in Kids Church during another gathering.
  2. More gatherings means more opportunities to serve means people commit and take ownership.
  3. Financially it’s possibly more responsible to maximize what you already have.

7. Eliminate Excuses and Lead

Our job as leaders is to take them where they NEED to go moth here they WANT to go.

Don’t say, “Our people won’t _________.” The truth is, we as leaders haven’t led them to ______. One of our greatest weaknesses is that we don’t take our responsibility.

Shutting the Back Door

Catalyst Make1. Follow Up.

Follow Up starts on Sunday. It starts in the parking lot. Most people decide if they teaming back within the first 5-10 minutes of their visit.

2. Make the Next step clear

Do we know what our Next Step is?

Do our visitors know what the Next Step is?

People need to be needed & known (in other words, get new persons Serving and connected in a Small Group).

YOUR TURN: What are your church’s areas of greatest need? What can you do next?

Guest Post: Thriving (Not Just Surviving) Married with Children by Tiffany Malloy

Tiffany and her husband Jake are some of my oldest friends. Not only do they have an awesome marriage, but they are two of the best parents I’ve ever met. Tiffany blogs about books and spirituality at her blog and also co-runs the parenting blog Play. Eat. Grow. Check ’em both out, and follow her on Twitter.

Tiffany and Jake on a date day
Tiffany and Jake on a date day

When Jake and I first got married, there was no such thing as our own space. We didn’t want our own space; instead, we were one of those nauseating couples who simply wanted to be together every single minute.

But as we dreamed about a future family, I started to imagine daily “me” times, weekly date nights, weekend  “family times” and regular one-on-one times with each of my children. All planned out at the beginning of the week, posted on our perfectly accurate family calendar (wahahaha).

What we learned as we started having kids, however, is that “life” often threatens to get in the way of the spaces we so desire to create for ourselves and for each other.Continue reading