[00:00:00] Well, there's a lot of people in my community at my church that have started going through meeting them out in the community. But the guts that it takes to walk into a new church, brand new, not knowing anybody, maybe you're new to Christianity, you don't know what's going on. It is super courageous and it is a big move. So one of the things that I teach and that Nelson Searcy teaches is we have to steward that well.
[00:00:25] Welcome to episode 459. As we head into the fall ministry season, we're replaying a wonderful conversation we had a couple years ago with Greg Atkinson. Greg is the author of Secrets of a Secret Shopper, Reaching and Keeping Church Guests, and an expert on helping churches level up their hospitality game. We think it's perfect right before we start the new ministry season. So that's today on The Reclaimed Leader.
[00:00:52] Welcome to The Reclaimed Leader Podcast. I'm Jason Tucker. And I'm Jesse Skiffington. We're two pastors in the trenches who are passionate about church health for greater gospel impact. We share the ups and downs of ministry, strategies that work for us. And some that didn't. Best practices and practical tools for church leadership. The goal? To help all of our churches flourish. Let's get started.
[00:01:18] Hey everyone, welcome back to The Reclaimed Leader Podcast. It is so good to be with you again today. Man, we're right in it. We are right. If you're listening in real time, school has started here in the Northeast. And I feel like we're finally getting back to some kind of rhythm. And now it's time to, really for a lot of people, to make sure that church is a part of their rhythm. And how can we help them do that? How can we help them connect and engage?
[00:01:44] And how are we ready for the people that will be coming to church or maybe looking around for a new church or maybe going back to church after a long time? And we've talked a lot about this on the podcast that it seems like there is this window right now where we have an opportunity to reach people like we haven't in a while. And I'm sure it's a lot to do with the state of the world and the level of anxiety that everybody's living with.
[00:02:08] I mean, my goodness, it's like, you know, if you look at social media at all, which, you know, advise that you don't, but it doesn't mean that we always stay away from it. It's like unbelievable how much it ratchets up your anxiety and some of it for good reason, but a lot of it not. And so what do we do? How do we as a church step into people's lives well in this way? How do we reach them where they are and help take them where God wants to take them?
[00:02:37] These are important questions. And so today's episode is really about, you know, how are you ready for these guests as they're coming into your church? So we are replaying this. And by the way, this is our last replay that we're going to do for a while, but it really did buy Jesse and I some time off, which was really good after so many episodes and so many weeks. It's great to sort of take a little bit of a break and enjoy some downtime and some time with family.
[00:03:07] But we're replaying this episode from Greg Atkinson, which now was like over a hundred episodes ago, episode 330, where he talked to us about how can a church elevate their guest experience? And I think I even think the title of that, it sounds a little corporate and not churchy enough, but trust me, it it's it's perfect because. I think the thing that happens in churches, everybody thinks that they are a friendly church.
[00:03:37] In fact, whenever I travel around and do consulting and I go to churches, one of the first things kind of self descriptors that I get of a church is always we're we're a friendly church. We're a warm church. And I'll never forget when we had a consultant years and years ago come to our church and we would have called ourselves a friendly church. I remember nobody interacted with him the whole time that he was here. And on a Sunday morning and it's like, well, maybe we're not so friendly.
[00:04:04] Maybe we're just friendly and warm to the people that we're friendly and warm with, you know. So anyway, there's a lot of great things in this conversation with Greg that I think are really worthy of our time and attention on a regular basis. So we're going to replay this one for you. And then Jesse and I will be back with some fresh content next week. So a little bit about Greg. I mean, Greg is just an absolute expert at this. As we said in the intro, the book that he wrote, Secrets of a Secret Shopper, are worth having and worth your team reading.
[00:04:34] And he's not paying us to say that. I just really think it's it's that good. He's the one that really kind of figured out that, you know, church folks, people are making up their mind whether or not they're going to come back after being a first time guest within the first seven minutes that they're on your campus. And that's a little startling, but I think really important to acknowledge. So anyway, let's get into it. I hope you enjoy it. Maybe you're re-listening to this after a long time or maybe it's your first time.
[00:05:02] But here's our interview with Greg Atkinson. Well, hey, everyone. It is so good to welcome to the podcast, Greg Atkinson. We're going to be talking about reaching and keeping church guests. And a lot of you know Greg's work. He is an entrepreneur, a bestselling author, international keynote speaker, leadership and life coach and business consultant.
[00:05:24] He's the founder and CEO of Greg Atkinson Consulting, the Kindness Group, Worship Impressions, the First Impressions Conference, which is great. And EntreChurch, the Entrepreneurial Church Conference, as well as the co-founder of the Social Media Church Conference. Greg has worked with organizations of all stages and sizes, churches of all stages and sizes, including some of the largest and fastest growing churches in the country, as well as business and nonprofits such as Josh McDowell Ministries.
[00:05:54] Greg has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Christianity Today and on CBS, Fox and NBC. And I think he wrote what is the most hands-on helpful book about creating first impressions, secrets of a secret shopper, reaching and keeping church guests. I am excited to welcome to the podcast, Greg Atkinson. Thank you for having me. And as we joke before I hit record, I'm like, you know, what am I doing with my life? How are you fitting all this in?
[00:06:23] And maybe that's the most impressive thing. All right. It's the odds for funeral life. That's it, man. As you see for those maybe you're watching on YouTube or if you're just listening, hustle, grind and execution are right behind them. So that explains a lot. So, Greg, I know you've got a lot of balls in the air and a lot of things going on.
[00:06:47] I'm hoping today we can drill down a bit on first impressions, but certainly you don't want to open that up to some other things that you were doing. But I'd love to just ask, how did you get into this? How did you get into being a church secret shopper? I mean, what was the catalyst that kind of made you get into that space? Yeah, so this month is my 30th anniversary in ministry and leadership.
[00:07:17] And I have spent 20 years on a church staff and 10 years in business, but it's all ministry related. And I've been consulting for 20 years. And I used to coach church planters with ARC. I was a part of the ARC staff. And my boss and mentor, Billy Hornsby, who has since passed away, we would travel together.
[00:07:42] And we were at a trip somewhere sitting in a hotel lobby in 2009. And I was doing just general consulting since 2005. And in 2009, he just looked right at me and said, Greg, you need to be a secret shopper. And I said, why do you say that? And he said, you just have a really good pulse on the church. I'm going to write you your first endorsement.
[00:08:06] And then he emailed the whole ARC database and said, you need to hire Greg Atkinson to do a secret shopper. And so I just blew up. And since 2009, I have secret shopped hundreds of churches. It just grew and grew and grew. And now there's a lot of people that come across me through a Google search. But early on, it was primarily just word of mouth. I've never done marketing, never ran ads.
[00:08:36] But if you Google search church secret shopper, it's my name that comes up. So some people would come across Google. But usually it was a church telling a church. And so it kind of catapulted from Billy Hornsby and him seeing something in me that I had not seen. That's awesome. And of course, a secret shopper comes from the marketplace world where you would hire somebody to come into your business organization. And nobody knows that you're there to check them out.
[00:09:04] And you just go through the experience and you notice what you notice and then kind of report back to the company. And it's interesting that while some churches have been employing this practice, there's a lot that are like, what are you talking about? I never heard about that. But how incredibly valuable it is. We had a consultant years ago when I first started here. And he's a friend of the podcast, Dr. Bob Weitzel.
[00:09:31] I met him in my doctoral work at Fuller Seminary. He came and did some secret shopping for us. And I was just mortified at what he found. It was just like nobody went to greet him. Like, oh, yeah, we're such a friendly church. Nope. We had all sorts of issues. But it was so incredibly helpful. It's eye-opening. It is.
[00:09:57] And whenever we talk about this subject, though, there are some pastors who glaze over a little bit or have a little bit of a reaction to it and say, well, if you just preach the word, you'll be fine. Like, you don't need to mess with all this bringing the business world into that. That's kind of how they see it. It's like we have our spiritual thing. And if God wants us to grow, he's going to do it. And he's going to do all these things. How do you respond when people respond like that? And it's often pastors who do.
[00:10:27] It is pastors. Yeah, I've heard it my whole career. Just preach the word of God. But I think, you know, when Jesus talked about being wise to serpents, I don't think there's anything wrong with strategy. I don't think there's anything wrong with learning from outside consultants. You know, the reason I wrote the Seeker Shopper book is so you can Seeker Shop your own church and you don't have to pay my fee or hire me or fly me in. You know, I said, do it yourself. You can't do it yourself. Pay 10 bucks for the book and then do your own Seeker Shopper.
[00:10:56] But there's got to be ways to evaluate what we're doing. You know, in business, it's all about metrics. If we can't measure it, then, you know, we've got to be able to measure it. We've got to be able to look at is what we're doing effective or our processes efficient and effective. And so I have heard that my entire career, the whole just preach the word of God.
[00:11:20] But it often comes from churches that are not really reaching their community very well. And what I've found from working with the largest and fastest growing churches in the country is they are hungry for growth. They really want to reach their neighbors, their community. They really want to turn first time guests into second time guests. And so what I start with and what I've seen is the results that happen when they invest in that.
[00:11:50] So I have a long list. This is just Greg's list. I have a long list of churches that were not on the Outreach Magazine's fastest growing church list, brought me in, hired me, worked with me. And then a year or two later, I look at the list and I say, wow, look who's there. And it's somebody that I worked with previously. But they make the changes. They adapt. They grow. They tweak things. They take my action steps seriously. They implement what I ask them to implement.
[00:12:20] And then they take off. And, you know, obviously there's the God factor of what God does and what God is doing in their community. But I think he honors the fact that they were open to growth and open to bringing in an outside perspective. You know, in our First Impressions Conference, I had my longtime 20-something-year-old friend Nelson Searcy speak.
[00:12:44] And he talked about the principle of spiritual readiness, that God's not going to bless you if you have not prepared and made things as welcoming as possible. He's not going to send the people your way. And he has this whole principle of spiritual readiness, that it first starts with preparation, and then God brings the people to you. And obviously, he's seen tremendous growth in a tough city like New York.
[00:13:14] But what I have found is God blesses a teachable, humble spirit that says, you know what? I don't know everything. I've lost my new eyes. I need somebody to come in and see this from an outside perspective. And I always, you know, I just did a very traditional First Baptist Church last week. And I always thank them and say, man, I love that you are investing in this. I love that you have the heart to reach more people.
[00:13:44] You know, and so the way that I explain it to people, if we just want to get as biblical and basic as possible, everybody has a heart for discipleship. They say, you know, we just want to go make disciples. We want to disciple people. The problem is a lot of churches don't have a problem with getting guests. They have a problem with keeping them. And so if a first-time guest does not come back as a second-time guest and a third-time guest, then guess what?
[00:14:14] You cannot walk alongside them and disciple them. So your discipleship philosophy is out the window because they came once and never came again. However, if we take first impressions seriously and we welcome them and greet them and have prepared for them and they return for a second and a third and a fourth visit, then we get the privilege and opportunity to disciple them and walk alongside them in a spiritual journey. But it all starts with that first impression.
[00:14:45] Yeah, that is very well said. I think just because it's strategic doesn't mean it isn't spiritual. I think that's the mistake that people make. What do you think about churches, small churches? So we start talking about this stuff. We start talking about – we'll get into it a bit with like guest services teams and things like that. And immediately some of our small church pastors tend to check out because they think, well, we don't have the resources for this kind of thing.
[00:15:11] Or this is only for the airplane hanger churches, right? This is just for the big, crazy, fastest growing 100 churches and not for us. Before we jump into some of the details, what would you have to say to them? Yeah. So one, that's why I wrote the Secret Shopper book. My publisher, Rainer Publishing, Sam Rainer, Tom Rainer's son, I said, hey, I do the Secret Shopper thing. I go out primarily 95% to mega churches.
[00:15:41] What if I wrote a book where I share everything I do, everything I look for, so that the typical small church can just buy a cheap book and do their own Secret Shopper and not have to hire an outside consultant? And Tom Rainer said, love it. Let's do it. Sam Rainer said, love it. Let's do it. And so we did the book. And, you know, I have Secret Shop small churches. I have Secret Shop church plants.
[00:16:06] I went to a, I had a buddy of mine where I used to live. Because I have done this a long time and I have worked with hundreds of churches, but I have a visual memory that my wife will tell you blows her mind. And I can remember every single one. And I remember what it looked like walking in their lobby. I remember the interaction with the pastor. I remember it all. But I had a buddy one time where I used to live who was an independent Baptist preacher.
[00:16:36] And he was filling in at a very small church. And when I say small, I mean 12 people. And so he said, Greg, because we were in this pretty same city. Like I was about 15 minutes from his church. He said, Greg, man, is there any way that you would come Secret Shop this church? He was kind of doing an interim thing. He said, would you come Secret Shop this church? And he said, I'll buy you lunch. I said, deal. Let's do it.
[00:17:04] So I come to this independent Baptist church with 12 people. You know how many people talk to me out of the 12? One, the pastor's wife. That was it. Let them people did not talk to me, notice me, or acknowledge me. And that's including the usher walking around, passing out stuff. And so we went to lunch. I chatted with him. He got fired up.
[00:17:28] He goes back to their Sunday night service and just blast them from the pulpit, holds up my book and says, this guy was here this morning. And none of you talked to him. He got so fired up. But I wasn't there that Sunday night. But he told me about it. But, you know, my buddy Karl Vaters, who does a lot with small churches, he is coming to my house tomorrow. Him and his wife are going to come stay for about a week with us up until Exponential.
[00:17:56] And he wants to co-write a book together. We have talked for years about co-writing together. But Carl has a heart for small churches and has pastored a small church for 30 years. And so he's going to be here at my house in Charlotte tomorrow, stand in our guest room. And we have talked a lot over the years. And he taught at our First Impressions Conference. Several times he taught at the First Impressions Conference.
[00:18:23] But one of the things that he and I talked about and that he talked about in his message was that First Impressions, yes, they matter in a large church, but they really matter in a small church. Like when you walk into a small church, everybody knows you're new. Everybody recognizes who's this stranger that I've never seen before, because I pretty much know the 75 that are here every week.
[00:18:50] Like it really matters in a small church. And so if you want somebody to feel warmth and welcome and hospitality and to return, if you walk in brand new into a smaller church and it is obvious that you are a newcomer and they don't welcome you, then it hurts even more. Like it's easy to blend in with a church at 5,000. It is a lot harder to blend into a church at 50.
[00:19:20] And so that's where the welcome, the hospitality, the First Impressions matter all the more. And one of Tom Rainer's books that I loved, his welcome book, he was talking about a research study that he did when he was at Lifeway. And they called guests of churches that did not return. And he said, why did you not return for a second visit?
[00:19:49] Why did you leave? And the number one answer was, after we got past the professional people in the parking lot, in the greeters, in the information booth, in the ushers, once we sat down in the congregation, nobody spoke to us. And that's the number one reason they did not return, according to Lifeway research. And so, you know, that really stings in a small church.
[00:20:14] And that, you know, in one of my books on hospitality ministry, I talked about section leaders and how you can have people that recognize, hey, I've never seen this person in my section before and strike up a conversation with them. But all that to say, my heart has always been for the small church. I go to a small church plant of an inner city church plant of 40 people. I have always been passionate about small churches and church plants, but it matters so much more in a small setting.
[00:20:43] And so I would encourage a small church pastor, a regular sized church pastor to take it seriously and realize they have an opportunity to do what I call a biblical mandate of hospitality and make people feel welcome. The Bible tells us to welcome the stranger. Yeah, I was. Let's get into some of the points in the book. I want I don't want to give it all away. Right. I want folks to buy the books.
[00:21:10] I really do think it's one of the best resources that you can have on your shelf when you're thinking about, you know, how do we do this? Well, how do we welcome people? Well, and how do we make them want to come back? I mean, give them a good experience. They want to come back. So in the book, and this was written pre pandemic. So I don't know if some of these things changed, but the order of impressions.
[00:21:35] You talk about social media, your mobile site, your church website, and then your parking lot. Is that order pretty much the same? You think from when you wrote the book? Yeah. If anything, online matters more. For people, there's some studies out. People almost always check you out online before they come in person. Not only that, what the studies show is they check you out online multiple times before they come in person. Yeah.
[00:22:01] So if you have a live stream or you stream your service online, they may watch it four to eight times before they ever darken the door. So it matters way more. Jesse, you've seen that at your church. I know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think for us, it's always, I mean, that's the front door now. It's never, you're meeting somebody who already knows something of who you are and what you're about and doing those things. And so it's not a cold welcome, maybe like it was in the old days. It's an informed welcome. And maybe they worked up the courage to finally show up.
[00:22:31] Man, we better be ready to say hello to them and welcome them in. So, you know, one of our habits is to try to greet people who maybe are new. And if you're new, you're joining us online. We'd love to see you in person. And we're always trying to bring it into the community of the actually, the physical community of the church, because that's where we want to be. But you got to acknowledge that, that it starts online. So I think that's spot on. It's tracking with us. Yeah. And one thing you said that I want to piggyback on that I talk about in my books is when somebody
[00:22:59] visits a local church, it's super brave. And it is a big spiritual decision whether they realize it or not. But the courage that it takes to walk into a new community when you know nobody there. I have some friends that I've been building relationships with that started going to church with me. Well, there's a lot of people in my community at my church that have started going through meeting them out in the community.
[00:23:24] But the guts that it takes to walk into a new church, brand new, not knowing anybody. Maybe you're new to Christianity. You don't know what's going on. It is super courageous. And it is a big move. So one of the things that I teach and that Nelson Searcy teaches is we have to steward that well. Like they have made a big courageous decision to walk through the doors of our local church. How are we stewarding that? That's the question you have to ponder. Sure.
[00:23:53] Yeah, that's spot on. Yeah, we always say it's somebody's first Sunday today. So let's make sure that we treat it as such. That we're ready for them when they come and that we do a good job of not just welcoming, but helping them know what to do. Let's make it easy for them when they walk in to our doors. Let's talk about social media for a second. I want to drill down on this because you talk about Facebook a lot.
[00:24:19] My question really is just, is Facebook still the place where most churches should be kind of spending their time on social media? Because it's like there's so many platforms and none of our kids are on Facebook. They're on Snapchat and all of that. But is that still like kind of the return on investment for time spent on Facebook? Great question. You know, I was just talking with a buddy of mine, Neil Smith, about this. So I have three adult kids. None are on Facebook.
[00:24:49] But what I have seen recently, so there's still a lot of ways to engage on Facebook, especially groups and pages, a lot of ways that you can connect with people. So I'm still a believer in Facebook. However, I probably spend the majority of my time on Instagram. And it's amazing to me that the only place that I can ever see my kids post, because I can't see their Snapchat, is Instagram.
[00:25:17] So they're 20-somethings and they're on Instagram. And all of my friends and peers are on Instagram. And I find myself scrolling and watching way more time on Instagram. Now, it is a whole different approach than Facebook. But the way churches are using it, usually in my reports, I will have a list of churches to watch on Instagram. And when I do a secret shop, it'll say, watch these churches.
[00:25:47] They're really killing it when it comes to Instagram. But I would definitely not give up on Facebook. I would just put more strategy and effort into Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. And does it sort of work the same? You talk about the ratio for posting on Facebook. Is it kind of the same idea, no matter what platform you're on? And again, the details in the book are like a certain percentage,
[00:26:15] inspiration, information, conversation, and celebration. Do you find that that kind of holds true even with other platforms? Yeah. Yeah. The only thing that I would say that I would take it up the knocks on Instagram, there's some pastors that I follow that do reels and they talk to the camera. Some pray, some do spotlights, some do the celebration. But Instagram has way more appreciation for video content.
[00:26:45] So if a pastor is talking to somebody and saying, you know, today I was reading such and such and I'm praying about this and I want to pray for you, just comment and, you know, encouraging interaction. But you could still use those same buckets. But how you use it would be a little different. Whereas there may be more of a content without video on Facebook, the video would really thrive on Instagram. No, that's good.
[00:27:11] So other than Tower Hill and what Jason's doing on Instagram all week long, who is doing it well out there? Without spoiling the whole list that people can get, but who's doing well? There's a lot of churches using it well. I like Gwinnett Church, you know, one of the North Point campuses. I like Gwinnett. I like Central in Las Vegas. I like Canyon Ridge in Las Vegas. You know, it's amazing.
[00:27:37] I was just talking to my wife recently, trying to get her, trying to convince her to go with me on a Las Vegas trip because I've spoken in Las Vegas so many times and seen so many amazing shows. And she's like, no, I don't want to go. It's Sin City. I said, you wouldn't believe what God's doing there. But there are some killer churches. I was talking with somebody this week at Awakend Church in Las Vegas. God is doing some cool stuff in Vegas. But out of the top five or six churches I watch on Instagram, the most two are in Vegas.
[00:28:07] It's unbelievable what God is doing. You know, just tell God he can't do something and watch him do it. God is doing some cool stuff. But I watch, yeah, Gwinnett Church, Central, some Canadian churches. But there are a lot of pastors and leaders who are also good to watch. You know, I was just at a conference with Kerry Newhoff. He's always got fresh, good content. Barna and what Barna is putting out.
[00:28:37] I like keeping up with conferences like the Orange Conference and just how they interact with people. But, yeah, there's my buddy, Tommy Colon, and we are teaching a workshop next week at Exponential Conference together. He prays a prayer every day. He'll just say, today I want to pray for your blank. And then he'll dive right in and start. He's walking around holding his camera and praying.
[00:29:05] And his follower count just goes up, up, up, up, up. People just love. Another person who I follow and love her prayers is Christina Baker. She has a Lawrence following. And she just prays with people every day, reads scripture, and then prays. But I honestly, for me personally, this is a side note. For me personally as a leader, most of my education and continuing ed these days is Instagram.
[00:29:33] Like, I watch Instagram to learn. I follow entrepreneurs, life coaches, millionaires, billionaires, pastors, Dr. Amen. I follow all these, like, scientists. I am constantly learning on Instagram. There is so much content coming at me that is educational in nature. So for me, as a leader that believes leaders are learners and I want to keep growing,
[00:30:02] I am scrolling through Instagram, just learning, learning, learning, learning. And I'll save posts or save reels and I'll think, I didn't know that. Didn't know that. That's awesome. Learning, learning, learning. But if you're not spending time on Instagram, so like, for example, my son, he's 21. He doesn't post, but he scrolls. He's watching and I can see he's watching, but he doesn't post himself. My wife is the same way.
[00:30:32] So even if you're a pastor who doesn't feel comfortable posting yet, you could still follow some accounts and learn and grow. Yeah, that's a great suggestion because I feel like that's just the posture that we need as pastors and leaders anyway. It's, all right, I have no idea how to do this stuff, but I'm really going to have no idea if I never engage with it. So let's jump in and let's learn and let's figure some stuff out.
[00:30:57] Before we go to in-person worship, I just want kind of a quick hit on websites because I still have a lot of pastors that are a little bit stuck. Like they're not putting any resources into their website, let alone making it responsive for mobile content, which is one of the most important things that you can do. It's like, I joke about it, but it's like, you know, papyrus fonts and precious moments. And like, you know, no bueno. We can't do that.
[00:31:26] I mean, how much, maybe this is a tough question to answer, but what do you think resource-wise for a smaller church to put some time and money into a website? I mean, how much are we talking nowadays? So I just had two websites built for my companies that I love and I think look incredible. GregAtkinson.com and EntreChurch.com. EntreChurch is the new initiative I'm doing, but I just built two brand new websites.
[00:31:55] Didn't cost much at all considering what other people may pay. And I use these guys that are amazing to work with called Launch Bay Creative. One's here in North Carolina, the others in Florida, Jeremiah and Steve, and they knocked it out of the park. If you get a chance, just go look at GregAtkinson.com. See how slick and innovative and creative. It's impressive. I spent a little time on there. It's impressive. Yeah, but it did not cost a fortune. Not at all.
[00:32:23] And then we just finished EntreChurch.com to get ready for Exponential next week. And EntreChurch looks incredible. They do such a good job. There's also companies like ChurchCo, my buddy Paul Cox. They do more of like a monthly fee where they host it and everything for you. And it's more of a WordPress based and you can use kind of their custom engine that is similar to WordPress, but it's their own custom thing.
[00:32:52] But there's a lot of churches, a lot of church companies that are doing some stuff that is very affordable. But, you know, in today's world where I don't know if you're aware, but Gen Z just passed boomers in the workforce. Like Gen Z is coming on strong. That's my kid's generation to 20 somethings. All three of my kids work. All three of my kids are in school. But that generation just passed us in the workforce.
[00:33:18] So with this new generation, they are native to good design. They are used to things looking well. Somebody reached out to me recently, said they had a ministry, said they wanted to partner with me. I go to their website. It was the biggest eyesore in the world. And to me, that speaks volumes. And I'm thinking, no, you're not legit. Look at your website. Like it speaks volumes. And people are that critical when they look at church websites.
[00:33:48] They'll look and see, like you said, is it mobile friendly, mobile responsive? Is it sharp looking? Is it design? One of the things that I talk about in my book, and I've said for years in consulting, when I come to your church website, do I see a picture of a brick building or do I see smiling faces? I don't want to see buildings. I want to see people interacting, people engaging, people in conversation.
[00:34:13] If I see smiling faces and kids smiling and worship shots, that's going to engage me and entice me to want to come check it out. If I just see a brick building with a steeple, that does nothing for me. I don't need to see a brick building. But the companies that are out there, it's not as expensive as you would think. And again, you could just look at my two websites that were just built in the last year.
[00:34:40] And I did not pay a whole lot for them. They're very affordable, but I would say it's a good investment. You know, I knew that I was going on a massive podcast with millions of listeners. So we pushed to have GregAtkinson.com finish before then. And then I knew that we're launching Onstra Church next week at Exponential. So we pushed to get Onstra Church built before then because that website impression matters so much. Yeah. Yeah. So true.
[00:35:10] And we put, I mean, churches put resources into their physical buildings, right? I mean, how many tens of thousands of dollars a year for utilities and upkeep and all that. And so to not be doing something similar with our digital billboard, if you will. I mean, this is what, how people go. I would say we should go. Let's go check it out. We should, I don't know a whole lot about these people, but they seem like they might be cool. We should go see. So that's really our goal with the website. Give them a little bit of a peek or a taste in some things to engage with. And that might say, actually, we should go show up there and meet these people.
[00:35:40] Yeah. Yeah. And it's a reminder of, and I think you, you may say this in the book, Greg, but it's a reminder of who is the website for now more than ever. It's for the people who aren't coming. It's for them. It's not for the insiders. I mean, I guess you could have a special sort of login page if you want membership stuff in there, but it's really about how are we, how are we showing them who we are? And, and that's why, you know, an insider focus would be, isn't our building beautiful?
[00:36:09] We just had it redone, you know? Um, but, but that's not what really people are caring about. They want to see, okay, what's it like inside? Yeah. All right. Just, just kind of quickly as, um, as you know, you put on your consulting hat and you're about to, you've checked it out online. You, you get, get in a sense of the church. Maybe you've had an interview with the pastor. Maybe you haven't, but you'd go to do your secret shopping and you're on your way to the church.
[00:36:37] Take us from, you're in the parking lot or you get into the parking lot. What are the top, like three things or so that you're really paying attention to before the service starts? Cause the stat used to be, I think, and I think you said this, people are deciding in the first 10 minutes if they're going to come back a second time. And then I recently saw on your first impressions conference website that that number was seven minutes and I believe it. I believe it.
[00:37:03] So what are the top couple of things really to help pastors get their heads around what really matters to a guest coming in? Great question. So like I was just telling somebody in a meeting previously, um, it is a big deal for me to go out now. I don't, I don't go out much anymore. It's, it's gotta be a, just the right fit for me to go out. However, I do train other consultants and certify people. I have a secret shopper certification and a cohort and I train others to go out.
[00:37:31] And recently in training some of these consultants, I was saying to them that here's my big secret that nobody knows. Uh, that, you know, you just mentioned the order. Uh, when I go to a city and I fly in and I'm going to do a secret shopper, I don't look at their online presence or website until I get back. I know for the guests, that's the first impression. But for me, I want to see if I show up on the campus of your church, do I get lost?
[00:37:59] I don't want to read FAQs on a website. I don't want to read a new here. I do that when I return and when I get home, then I evaluate the online presence, but I want to walk in blind as can be to that parking lot. And I want to see, do I get lost? Am I going to be confused? Because I can't just expect that everybody read thoroughly enough on the website or clicked on the new here button or plan a visit.
[00:38:26] So I go in completely blind wherever the city is in America. I walk up and, um, that stat still holds true. I've seen it verified by multiple consultants from, um, Will Mancini to Tom Rainer to Mark Watts to Tony Morgan. We all agree it's about seven minutes. However, there are other studies, scientific studies, uh, and this is important to realize that show that a true first impressions happens in a millisecond.
[00:38:55] Like if I woke up and your building is in rough shape, instantly I have an impression. Like you can throw the seven minutes out. I've already got a bad taste in my mouth because your landscaping is bad or your building looks terrible on the outside and needs a fresh coat of paint. I can in a millisecond make an impression. It's the same way when we meet people, somebody will look us up and down in a millisecond and have an impression. It's the, um, don't judge a book by its cover, but they do.
[00:39:24] They instantly will make a judgment. Now that could change over time if they warm up to us and say, yeah, Greg's a big guy with tattoos, but he's really a nice guy. And he's really all about, but in a millisecond, they make a, they make an impression. But that journey from the parking lot into the sanctuary, there's about seven minutes there where a lot is factoring into their mind. Are they confused? Did somebody open the door for them? Did anybody wave and greet them?
[00:39:53] Was it hard to check in their kids at children's check-in? There's a lot of stuff that they're factoring in their mind. And when they sit down in the service, they've already made up their mind of, nope, not coming back here. And the thing I always try to get across, because this is so important and you guys are pastors, it is long before the sermon. You know, you have worked this week on a great sermon, but they have already made up their mind because they opened the door by themselves.
[00:40:20] Like if I get to the front door of your church and I have to open it and nobody's opened it for me, that already factors in an impression, a negative one. If I stop off to use the restroom and it smells like urine and there's toilet paper on the floor and not in the trash can, like I have already made an impression. And so you've really got to, and that's what the Secret Shopper book was aimed at. You really got to take those first seven minutes seriously. Yeah.
[00:40:47] When you come in, what I always say is if you have good people to help welcome people, it can cover a multitude of sins. Like let's say your building's a little bit confusing, your signage needs some work, but hey, we're working on it. You can overcome some of that stuff if you've got really great people in position. Would you agree with that? Yeah. I think there's a balance because one of the things I talk about in both of my books is
[00:41:14] not to an extreme where somebody is an overzealous greeter and they won't stop talking to the person or they won't stop shaking their head. So there's got to be balance, but yeah, if you're a genuinely hospitable, friendly person with a gift of hospitality and you engage with somebody and welcome them in an authentic, genuine way, then yeah, that goes a long way. One of the pastors here, her daughter, she had this experience where she went to go visit
[00:41:42] a church and they welcomed her. It was a small church. They welcomed her and they instantly gathered all of her information. And by the time she got home, there was cookies on her porch from the church before she came home from church. And she was so weirded out by the experience. She's like, it's the church that follows you home. I am never going to go back there. I've heard a lot of stories like that. Now, there was a local church that asked me to consult with them one time and I did.
[00:42:12] And then I'm sitting in my den in the afternoon watching football. Somebody rings the doorbell and come there. This older gentleman gives me a plate of cookies, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and said, just wanted to drop these by. And I sat down and mucked on those cookies watching football. And I thought, I don't mind. I actually, but I can understand the whole being weirded out by somebody showing up at your doorstep. He didn't try to evangelize me.
[00:42:42] He didn't try to convert me. But I sat down and mucked on the cookies. So there's a, you know, it's one of the things I have learned over the years is there's no cookie cutter approach to people. Some people will be wowed by chocolate chip cookies and love them. Some will be freaked out that you showed up at their door. Everybody's different. Some people, you know, I work with tons of contractors with my business. I have some people that will never get on the phone.
[00:43:11] Like they, they will text. And if I say, hey, let's talk about this real quick. Can you give me a call? Nope. They will not call no matter what. So some people, if your church assimilation process involves calling, some people will be upset because you called them. Some people will be upset because you text them and they reply unsubscribed. Stop. Stop texting me. Like they automatically get weirded out by church texting solutions.
[00:43:35] And so I would just say, try to find something that has the most results, the best results for you. You're not going to hit everybody because nobody's wired the same. And if 80% people respond to text and 20 don't like it, I'm happy with the 80%. Just find what works for your community. Man, this is really good stuff, Greg. I appreciate it so much. Appreciate your time with us today.
[00:44:05] Tell us what, what are you working on now? You got EntreChurch coming up. What are you working on now that you're excited about that you really want our listeners to know? So two big things. One, now in a post COVID world, I have opened back up my Charlotte getaway weekend. So I used to do retreats pre COVID where leaders from all over North America, from Seattle to Toronto would come spend the weekend with me.
[00:44:30] We did a Friday night workshop and team building Saturday workshop. And then we did a tour of three Charlotte churches Saturday night and two on Sunday morning. And when people left, not only was that group of people, we limited to 12. Not only were those 12 people friends for life and they come from all over the country or North America, but they also got to be a secret shopper as we went to three Charlotte churches.
[00:44:57] And we also worked custom, no cookie cutter, custom worked on their ministry for Friday and Saturday. We worked on developing their ministry. And so that got put on hold during COVID. And now I have brought it back, just opened up registration. So if you would like to come hang at a cabin on a lake, it's the largest man-made lake in America. We were featured last year in the Wall Street Journal and on the Today Show as the number
[00:45:25] one resort destination in America. So where we are in Lake Norman, it's Race City, USA, home to NASCAR. Christian McCaffrey is selling his mansion here because he's in San Francisco now. But this is like a beautiful community. So I invite people to come here. We do it spring, summer, and fall and just spend the weekend with me going deeper on your ministry. So that's something I'm excited that's going on. And then EntreChurch is launching next week. You can check it out at entrechurch.com.
[00:45:55] And that is helping pastors and churches supplement their income so they're not reliant purely on tithes and offerings if that does not bring in enough money to support your staff. And so we're helping churches with entrepreneurial ventures. Or maybe a pastor has the side hustle. It could be that simple. But a lot of people are excited about that. You can go to the About page and click on Meet the Team and see the advisory team that's a part of this.
[00:46:24] And my next call in 15 minutes is with a dean of a school. We're getting academics involved. We're getting Bible colleges and seminaries involved in how they teach and train pastors to prepare them for a new world where they'll have to be bivocational. Canada's already there. The UK's already there. Australia's already there. We have teams in all those countries. But the U.S. is headed to that way, a post-Christian world.
[00:46:52] And so we just want to help prepare the church. Dang, you're crushing it, dude. You're crushing it. And by the way, I'm sold on the retreat, man. I'm about to leave this conversation and go check it out. Yeah, I'll send you the link. Nobody, you can read on the page all the endorsements. Nobody that has come didn't enjoy it. They are blown away. And you get to experience my hospitality because I take everybody to my favorite restaurants. We do fun games together.
[00:47:22] It's just it's a really cool experience. That's awesome, Greg. Well, hey, man, so appreciate you being on the podcast. And may God continue to bless the very important and good work that you're doing and hopefully get a chance to talk again. Yeah, thank you for having me. Man, that was such a great interview with Greg. I really appreciated all of his insights so, so much. And just listening to it again, I'm just being reminded of things that maybe we haven't even thought about in a while. I think it's probably about time.
[00:47:50] You know, I was kind of walking our building this morning and I was looking around at some of our environments, ministry environments. And I was thinking, man, this really needs a refresh or we need to remind people of how we want it to look and how guests are going to come and experience it. I mean, this is all stuff that's just so important because we all just kind of become blind or nose blind even to the things that we're familiar with every day.
[00:48:16] So anyway, I hope this is helpful for you and for all of our churches that we do everything we can to reach the people around us. And if you ever want to reach out to us, Jason or Jesse at ReclaimLeader.com. We love talking with pastors. It's one of our favorite things. And I do have a book that talks a lot about reaching the next generation. It's the whole reason that I wrote it. And it helps walk you through a process to do that. So I know many of you have gotten the book and you have told me that.
[00:48:42] And that's been really cool getting to hear from you and how you're implementing it in your churches. But speaking their language, wherever books are sold, is really about how do we help churches to reach the people around them, reach different and hopefully younger generations and sharing the gospel with them. So anyway, this whole conversation is right in the core of who I am and what I care about most, reaching the lost for Jesus.
[00:49:10] And I pray that everything that you do and endeavor to do as pastors and churches is kind of in that same lane. So anyway, thanks so much for listening. And as we always say, ministry is hard. It is so much better when we do it together.