The Church Experience
People pick where to go to church the same way they choose where they want to go out to eat, what school they will send their kids to, or who will be their family doctor. Yes, some decisions are harder than others, and many choices play a part in the decision that we make, but all of those little decisions can be summarized into one thing—an experience. People are searching for a specific experience when they are searching for the right church for their family. In this blog post, we’ll share a little bit about how we have developed the Victory experience, and how you can implement something similar in your own church or organization.
The typical weekend church service, today, has so many moving parts. You have the worship service part, the sermon, the announcements or offering time, the closing altar call, etc. All of those different service elements play different roles in the overall experience that someone has at your church. Each are important in their own right. But what we have found is this: when it comes to the local church, people are looking for connection. They want to feel connected to what is happening in the service.
How many of you pastors have ever had someone tell you after your sermon that your message really connected with them? Worship leaders, how many times have you heard someone talk about a worship song and they say something about being able to connect with a certain song? This connection is their experience.
Someone’s experience can also be viewed as how they feel. Think about your favorite retail store. Why is it your favorite? You probably have multiple reasons why that store is your favorite. All in all, I would be willing to bet that your favorite store has won the label of favorite because of how that store makes you feel. One of my favorite stores is actually a fast food chain. Chik-Fil-A. Yes, they have the best chicken in town and it is reasonably priced. But that is not why I keep going back. I keep going back because I have yet to have a bad experience there. Their facility is always clean and put together, no matter what location I visit. The workers are always friendly, helpful, and super-fast. The food is consistently good and lately, they’ve been calling me by name, which is SO cool. Chik-Fil-A 's consistency of great service is a large part of their overall success.
How come the church can’t adopt the same ideas for their weekly services? Why can’t we create a consistent, unique experience that makes people want to keep coming back? What if we set out to not just give people a sermon and a worship set? Chik-Fil-A doesn’t just offer me a chicken sandwich. They offer me an experience that I keep coming back for.
How are we making people feel?
Often times, people forget the sermon that was preached, no matter how great it was. As a pastor’s kid and grandkid, I have sat through a fair share of sermons in my life. I can’t recall to memory too many of them. The same goes for worship services. The most powerful worship services can often be forgotten. The most memorable experiences I have had in a church service directly coincide with how that experience made me feel. That experience comes from how connected I felt to what was going on during the service, and how I was treated.
Carl W Buehner said it best: “they may forget what you said –but they will never forget how you made them feel. When we set out to create a unique experience at Victory, we wanted to answer one question: how do we want people to feel?
1. The first answer is, we want people to feel loved. Our mission statement at Victory is Love God, Love People. We want people to know that God loves them, and we love them.
2. The second answer is, we want people to feel known. One of the greatest needs for mankind is the need to be known. The need to belong. We want people to know that we see them. We want them to feel acknowledged.
3. The third answer is, we want them to feel challenged. When people feel challenged, they are open to taking actions and steps toward accomplishing that challenge. We challenge our guests through opportunities to grow in many areas of their life.
Answer this question about your ministry or organization: What experience do we want our members, partners, or customers to have? How do we want them to feel? This is the first step in developing and initiating the right messaging and process for creating your unique, memorable experience.
We hope you enjoyed this blog post, and we look forward to hearing more about the experience you have created in your ministry! Comment some of your thoughts in the message board below.
VLN Administrator
Have questions?
Email your questions to us at vln@victory.com. We look forward to serving you!
