Read the Transcript

Jonathan Hardy 0:29
Well, several years ago, when we started this new church in Kansas City, Missouri, as you know, with any church plant, you’re just hoping that anyone and everyone who comes to the church is going to stay.

Dick Hardy 0:37
As long as they breathe you want them.

Jonathan Hardy 0:39
Yeah, they have they have a pulse? You gotta pulse? Okay, you’re in. But the thing is, in order for people to come and stay, they have to have a good experience, and that starts as they’re walking into the doors, as they’re entering the parking lot. And as a church plant, we wanted to make sure that we put our best foot forward for people and people had a great first impression because we know first impression is a lasting impression for people. And so that’s why we wanted to do everything we could to make sure we had all the people slated to be at the doors greeting and to be out in the parking lot helping, to be welcoming people as they walked into the gym, which is where we met and, and all those different things were massively important. But what we realized is you can’t just throw anyone in that. You have to make sure you have the right people. And so today we want to talk about eight steps to recruit hospitality volunteers that’s going to help set you up for success and give the people that come and visit your church and the people that are attending your church, a great experience, week end and week out. So with that being said, let’s go ahead and kick it off and start talking about the eight steps.

Step #1: Pray For The Right People

Dick Hardy 1:40
Yeah, I want to talk to you about the first two steps. The first step you might know, we’re simply going to say, you need to pray for the right people. Because your intelligence will only go so far. I mean, you’re a very smart person, but the reality is, we’re in an entity called the church, your local church, big church that were part of, the small “c”, your church in your local community. You need the right people and you need for the Lord, to direct you to the right people. You can’t just fly past this one you better spend time in prayer. And whenever we’re talking about something big in what we do, and it’s the same as what you do, because recruiting first impressions, is big. We always go to prayer first, we absolutely go to first pray them in.

Jonathan Hardy 1:57
Well, and God has the people right there.

Dick Hardy 2:35
Exactly.

Jonathan Hardy 2:36
And he knows exactly what you need. Sometimes we don’t know what we need, or we don’t see the people yet, and then by prayer, he brings someone to mind and says, “hey, you should call this person today.” Or you know, however that looks. It happens.

Dick Hardy 2:47
And you’d be amazed at what happens that way.

Jonathan Hardy 2:49
That’s right.

Step#2: Look For People With Outgoing Personalities

Dick Hardy 2:50
Second thing you need to consider is you need to be factoring or looking for people with outgoing personalities, or what we call “people people.” Now I will say, don’t limit yourself to this. Don’t say, “oh because this person is an extrovert, they’d be a good greeter. This person is an introvert, they’d be a lousy greeter.” You can’t say that. But I would start with your outgoing personalities. And by the way, you want them to be genuine. You can have an outgoing personality person, and they feel as phony as all get out and you don’t want that. Outgoing personality. Yes, you can have introverts. Start with the outgoing personalities. So that’s number two. Number three, Jonathan.

Step #3: Tell Stories Of Life Change

Jonathan Hardy 3:31
Alright, so as you’re talking to people about trying to join the hospitality team, it’s important to tell stories of life change, because you want to help people understand how the hospitality or you know, some call it first impressions team, how those teams of people have an impact on the overall mission. The reality is they do, and all the studies show that when people come into the doors, especially visitors, they’re making the decisions about the church before they enter this sanctuary, before they hear the sermon, they’re making a decision. And so that means the hospitality, they’re the frontlines. And so you want to help them understand the impact that they have. And that can happen when you tell stories of lives that are being changed and people who are being impacted all because of what happened. And specifically, if you hear stories of how the church was so friendly, or you know, they felt so welcome, then you have to be shouting those stories from the rooftops because that’s a direct connection, direct correlation to what they’re doing because they’re the ones creating that friendliness, that welcoming atmosphere, that positive environment that people like when they come into the auditorium.

Dick Hardy 4:43
And the longer you’re around, you’re eventually going to get some comment like this. “Well, I don’t know who that guy was out the parking lot, but he was so happy. I just thought, man, this is the place for me.” Well, it was Bubba. It was Bubba out in the parking lot, but you better capture that story and spread it out. Or, “oh, that cute older couple at the front door, I just love that.” You know, and sorry pastor to tell you, but just to verify what Jonathan said, long before your sermon starts, they’ve made their decision. So this is why you need those great people.

Jonathan Hardy 4:56
Yeah, and when you’re highlighting those stories like that, not only are you hopefully celebrating Bubba or the couple that you mentioned, but you’re also showing your hospitality team, that, you know, what those people were doing is great. And we want more of that. And so that’s part of your recruitment process. You got to make sure that you’re helping people understand why it is they’re doing what they’re doing.

Dick Hardy 5:12
And they’ll say, “I want to be part of that. I want to be part of these people who are doing life change.”

Jonathan Hardy 5:38
Yeah, they’re raising their hand saying, “Yes, I’m in, I’m on” before you even make the ask.

Dick Hardy 5:42
Jonathan sign me up! Yeah, just sign me up right here!

Jonathan Hardy 5:44
Exactly.

Step #4: Define The Timeframe

Dick Hardy 5:45
All right. The fourth thing is you want to define the timeframe. Now, you know, you’ve probably had it happen. I know the both of us have had it happen, where you get recruited and you’re into like, volunteer purgatory. I mean, no offense to the Catholic viewers here. But I’m telling you, don’t expect people are just going to stay forever and ever and ever. Now you want them to stay a long time, but define the period of time that you want them to serve. So you may say, okay, listen, we’ve got our first impressions team meeting, and they’re the greeters, they’re the car parkers, they’re in the lobby, whatever, I want you to serve for six months. I want you to serve for 12 months. So when you’re signing on, you’re making a commitment of this nature. Now I tell you, you will want them to sign on for a longer period of time, then lots of people. As time goes on, and now you know, we’re into the 2020s. People are having shorter and shorter time commitments. So you can whine about that as a pastor or church leader or recruiter or you can just face the facts and recruit more and more and more potentially for shorter timeframes. But the point is: define it. You don’t need your volunteers wondering, “well, how long am I supposed to keep doing this? If they signed on January to December, then they know, January to December, if you make that definition clear, and you’ll be good to go.

Jonathan Hardy 7:13
Yeah. Now, of course, when you do that, too, then you have to have some kind of mechanism I’m assuming to follow up because…

Dick Hardy 7:19
Of course! Because time is gonna run out.

Jonathan Hardy 7:21
And that’s not fair to the person if you just keep trying to schedule them after December’s over and they’re like, well, I thought I was just going through December, you know, so you want to make sure if you’re going to define that time that you literally define it, and then you have some sort of follow up. And that’s probably a whole episode we could do.

Dick Hardy 7:38
So give us a flyover these four points, Jonathan.

Recap:

Jonathan Hardy 7:40
Okay. Just to refresh we talked about four out of the eight steps. First step is to pray for the right people. Second, look for outgoing personalities. Third, tell stories of life change, and then fourth, define the timeframe. Now in the next episode, we’re going to cover the next four steps that you want to take. That’s going to really help you get the right people in your volunteer, hospitality, first impressions team and help you be more welcoming, more friendly as a church, so that as visitors are coming, they’re getting that great top notch experience, that over the top hospitality five star experience.

Dick Hardy 8:14
Exactly, exactly. You know, along with this one of the things we want to encourage you to do as a leader, as a pastor, is to take a look at the Five Day Leadership Challenge that we’ve created specifically for you to help you get better, because when you get better, your ability to recruit gets better. In this case, hospitality, first impressions people. For the Five Day Leadership Challenge, go to Leaders.Church/challenge. That’s Leaders.Church/challenge. And it’s very simple. If you did that today, boom, this is day one, and you’ll get the first video, you need to put aside 15 minutes to walk through that video. There’s a discussion guide that goes with it designed to help you work on you to get better, not the church not everybody else, it’s the five day challenge for you. And when you’ do this, you’re gonna see some great things happen. Walk through the five days, it’s free to you, there’s no cost at all and it will help you be a better leader and a better pastor. As well, I really want to encourage you to subscribe to the podcast platforms, whatever platform you’re listening or watching this on. And certainly on YouTube. When you do that, you’re going to help spread the word because we believe church tips is something that can help you. It helps us and it helps us get the word out to more and more people. We’ve really enjoyed having you here today. We hope you really will grab that next episode, it’s going to help complete this whole eight points that we’re talking about today. The four today and four tomorrow. So anything else we want to add, Jonathan?

Jonathan Hardy 9:48
That’s it!

Dick Hardy 9:48
What did I forget?

Jonathan Hardy 9:49
That’s everything!

Dick Hardy 9:50
Okay, thanks very much for being with us today. Make it a great one, and be blessed.

Subscribe & Follow: