Don’t be a false advertiser!

“We are a friendly church!” This is one of the most common statements that I hear at the churches that I travel to. It is usually not just an empty motto; the statement is completely true. They are very friendly people! However, may I say that the same could be said of our Wal-Mart greeters, but I do not go to Wal-Mart on a regular basis because of the their friendliness. People are looking for more than a “friendly church”. They are looking for friends! The homeless, the hurting, those without a church home, are looking for people who will reach out to them and become their friends.

Do not misunderstand me: I understand the importance of the “friendliness factor”. Thom Rainer points out in his book “Surprising Insights of the Unchurched”, that 61% of people who are looking to switch churches find friendliness to be a big factor. Also, 41% of formerly unchurched people cited friendliness as an important factor.

Friendliness is not a church marketing tool, but should be the result of the overflow of our relationship with God. We should not only be friendly to our visitors, but reach out to them as friends. I encourage you to read the seventh chapter of “The Master’s Plan for Making Disciples” by Win Arn and Charles Arn. The chapter is entitled, “Incorporating new disciples into the church”. In this chapter we find that the number of new friends a person makes in the first 6 months of church attendance will have a great and direct influence on whether that person remains in your church.

The following table is taken from the book, and charts one hundred people who made decisions to accept Christ. Fifty are still active in the church, and fifty have dropped out. You will be surprised to see how large a role making friends in the church played.

Number of New Friends	Active in Church	Dropped out of Church
0	0	8
1	0	13
2	0	14
3	1	8
4	2	4
5	2	2
6	8	1
7	13	0
8	12	0
9+	12	0

As we see here in the chart, connecting people in our churches is crucial in the discipleship process. A smiling face and a warm greeting at the door will only be beneficial if it is at least occasionally followed up with a “hey, let’s get together sometime!”, or “we would like to have your family over for supper”. There are plenty of friendly people in this world. Let’s be more than friendly to our visitors: let’s really become their friends!

If you want your church to truly be a “friendly church” you must do more than give visitors a warm smile. You must be willing to reach out to the people that walk through the door of your church, and be willing to become their friends for the cause of Christ!