Practical Steps to Creating Your Environment, Part 1

Choosing to visit a church for the first time can be a daunting experience for many. Many first time visitors to your church can have their defenses up. Perhaps they have been hurt by a previous experience; perhaps they walked away from established religion a long time ago; perhaps they’ve never been to church. Regardless of their reasons for walking in our doors, it is our immediate job to “disarm” them, to prepare them to hear the gospel and to prepare them for praise & worship.

A quick and easy way to ensure their comfort in a Portable Church is to ensure that your signage is correct, helpful, easy to read and pleasing to the eye.

It’s possible that your first-time-visitor will prefer to remain anonymous and will not be comfortable asking strangers for directions. Even if they are comfortable with asking for directions, they may not always be able to locate someone (especially if they arrive late). Make sure they know where to park, which entrance to use, where to get information, where to get coffee, where to drop off their children, which door to use for the worship environment, etc.

Here’s a quick list of suggestions we make to all of our church planters (please note -the Blogger graphic loader is "down", so I was unable to post pictures; will do so later..).

• Menu Signs – place menu signs at all entrances that show locations for major routes.
  
  
• Destination Signs - Each room should have a sign in front of it, signaling “This is it!”
  
  
• Helper Signs - If visitors will have a long walk from one destination to another, make sure to place “helper signs” letting them know that they’re still heading in the right direction.
  
  
• Exterior Signage - Outside your venue, use signage to clearly mark parking entrances, main entrances and sectioned parking. Take the main entrance or the street-facing entrance and “claim” it as your own while you’re there!
  

Making these simple suggestions a part of your portable church culture can help you begin to create an environment of comfort and ease for your first time visitor.

As always, if you have any questions - especially regarding the right number of signs, the heighth, width, etc, give us a call.

In the meantime, check out the signs at the airport next time you are there. Pay special attention to the signs you use when trying to find the baggage claim at your destination. That’s good signage.


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