What is most important to a first-time visitor to your church? David Zimmerman, writing on Church Marketing Sucks, says, “First-time visitors care most about not embarrassing themselves.” He then gives some examples of what a visitor might fear:

• How they are dressed. Too casual, or too dressed-up?
• Will their kids acts up and make a scene?
• Will they get confused and stand up at the wrong time?
• When the offering is taken, will they feel pressured to give?

Zimmerman mentions how some churches ask visitors to stand. I haven’t seen that since college, when a UB church here in Huntington had visitors stand and introduce themselves (for the record, it didn’t make me uncomfortable then, but would now). He also mentions attending a church that reversed it, asking the regulars to stand and the visitors to remain seated. He then found himself “surrounded by towering members in this intimidating church, each hanging over me as they offered me an obligatory welcome and handshake.” Yeah, that would make me claustrophobic.

Here are some other things that can cause a visitor some anxiety or awkwardness.

• As you enter the church, someone shakes your hand and states a boilerplate welcome, and then goes on to the next person. You’re left standing by yourself, feeling conspicuous and wondering, “Where do I go now?” Contrast that with a greeter who sticks with you, shows you around, and genuinely takes an interest in you.
• Uh oh, they’re doing communion. What’s the procedure? Do I need to get out of my pew and go somewhere? Can visitors even take communion here or do you need to be a member? Do I drink and eat as soon as I get the elements, or do I wait? I need to watch everyone closely to make sure I don’t screw it up.
• Standing around by yourself, waiting for the service to star. Nobody comes up to speak to you, even though it’s obvious you’re a visitor. You feel sooo conspicuous.
• As a lifelong church attender, I know that people stake out regular pews. I’m afraid of sitting in someone else’s “personal” place. At a UB church some years ago, an older couple gave me a bothered look, because I apparently took “their” pew. Hey, I’m sorry.
• If the church has a greeting time during the service, this can be a nice thing. But it can also be terribly awkward if you’re a visitor and people still ignore you. Or if they give you a quick “Nice to have you” welcome, and then turn to someone else–a regular, someone they know–and begin talking about how their week went.

At any event, I’m always hyper-conscious of how I’m dressed. Am I over-dressed, or under-dressed? I need to get over that, but at age 50, it’s pretty ingrained and I’m not sure my apparent low sense of self can conquer this persistent insecurity.

Dawn Nicole Baldwin is CEO of AspireOne, which helps churches (mostly very large ones) with branding and web strategy. She’s a real authority on branding, particularly as it relates to the church world. She’s tightly associated with Willow Creek. Here are some tidbits from her afternoon session on branding.

• Ask, “What do we, as a church, want to be known for?” If we’re not intentional about defining who we are, others will do it for us.
• “Brand experience” includes many ways people interact with you: word of mouth, your website, mailers, publications, your logo, and much more. The brand is not just the logo.
• Brand strategy: ask these three questions: Who are you serving? What are your unique strengths? How do you reach people with impact.
• When ministry leaders say, “We need a brochure,”…do they really? I face that at the denominational level. Everyone wants a brochure, and I don’t think they’re all that valuable.
• Blanding: trying to be all things to all people. You water all your uniquenesses down.
• She doesn’t like churches giving different brands to a bunch of church ministries. She doesn’t like having different URLs for the various ministries. Prefers having everything under the single brand of the church and the church website.
• Identify your biggest fans (brand advocates). In churches, your church’s biggest fans are often new Christians.
• Sometimes the senior pastor is such a presence that he is the brand. Go to the website for Houston’s Lakewood Church. You’ll see Joel Osteen plastered everywhere. You wonder whether the website is for the church or a commercial for his books.
• Seacoast Church is a multi-site church with 11 campuses, one of which is five hours from water. Did the name “Seacoast” fit them? They decided that their brand transcended geography.
• She gave away some gifts. One was to the person who had been in his/her communications role the longest. A gal sitting in front of me said “16 years,” and nobody could top that. So she got a free book. After the workshop, I told her, “I’ve been doing my job for 26 years.” But since the focus here is local church communications, I didn’t inject myself.

During the 12 years I edited a denominational magazine, I usually attended the annual Evangelical Press Association convention, an organization representing several hundred Christian publications. Each day featured various workshops, which were often led by persons from the Big Important Publications. We’re talking Moody Magazine, the various Christianity Today magazines, Decision, and the larger denominational magazines (The Banner, the Church Herald, Vital Christianity). These were multi-staff publications, and the workshop leaders could talk about relating to the graphics department, the marketing department, the editorial staff, etc.

Meanwhile, there were a heck of a lot of us one-person-shows editing small organizational, missionary, or denominational publications. I had a part-time secretary, but beyond that, I did everything. I wrote lots of stories, I edited all stories, I proofread copy before sending it for typesetting (pre-computer days), I spent numerous hours hunched over a light-table laying out the magazine, I proofread the thing again, and I interacted with the printer. I devised whatever marketing materials we used. I designed the covers and all interior artwork. I could learn from the Moody editor, but my situation bore little resemblance.

So one year I offered, and was invited, to lead a seminar for editors like me–guys and gals who did the whole shebang. I knew there were a bunch of us, toiling in anonymity and eating by ourselves at the convention. I forget my creative title and description, but it must have worked, because the room was packed. A few of them (myself included) had been wooed by prestigious publications, but had decided God wanted them to remain–contentedly–where they were.

I talked about issues common to us Do-It-Alls. For instance: most of us editors became editors because we were pretty good wordsmiths, yet we also had to do graphics work, something for which bigger magazines have specialists. How do we compensate when we can’t delegate our weaknesses? I had probably ten such issues unique to one-person situations, and I used them as fodder for discussion.

Since my seminar style is always interactive, a lot of great ideas flew back and forth. Editors shared their limitations–time, skills, budget, staff–and ways they worked around those limitations to still produce a quality product. Nobody from a Big Important Publication attended my wee little workshop because, of course, they had nothing to learn from a comparative underachiever like me. But I discovered a whole bunch of my peers who were in the same boat I rowed year after year, and many of our needs weren’t being addressed by the highly-skilled folks at Christianity Today.

I think of this in relation to pastors and the broader church world. Tens of thousands of ministers serve small churches, and serve alone. Maybe a secretary or part-time youth guy, but basically alone. To improve as ministers, what is available to them? Well, they can read books by megachurch pastors, and they can attend conferences put on by megachurches. And I wonder: how well do these resources really, really, address their unique situations? (Not being a pastor, I don’t really know.) I know that the Big Guys stress that they are imparting principles that can work in any size of church, and don’t require the large staff and resources available to them. But…okay…whatever.

Is there, anywhere, a solo pastor who people look at and say, “That guy’s a success. He should write a book or lead a seminar.”

Or consider: is it okay, in today’s American church culture, to aspire to be a great solo pastor? Is it okay to not yearn to lead a Whole Hog church?

It seems that we corporate-minded 21st Century Americans are not allowed to pin “Successful Pastor” badges onto solo ministers. If you’re in a multi-staff situation, then you have something to share in a seminar or book. If you’re not in a multi-staff situation, then you need to attend the other guy’s seminar or read his book. And obviously, the megachurch guy has zilch to learn from you, little peon.

I know that it was helpful for me to gather with a bunch of solo editors to talk about our contexts and to share ideas. How well this truly relates to pastors…I don’t know. I’m just wondering.

Dean Batala, who spent six years as executive producer of That 70s Show, is a Christian, and he’s mad at God. “I’m angry that he has blessed bad art‚Äîeven certain Christian films that have been seen by a lot of people. It makes me angry as an artist, because they’re bad. Just because people go see it, that doesn’t make it good.”

He continued, “This is my frustration: The gospel written on toilet paper still saves lives. There’s power in the gospel.”

Interesting. I remember watching a children’s worker stumble badly through presenting the plan of salvation to a group of children. It was horrible. The guy was clearly nervous and lacking in confidence. And yet, someone important to me responded and became a Christian.

That just shouldn’t happen. If we can’t do something well, God shouldn’t bless it…right?

But God does bless what sometimes seems unworthy. Ministers carrying on secret affairs are still instrumental in changing lives. Missionaries of earlier years have gone overseas with attitudes we would now consider highly unenlightened–colonial, the West-is-Best approach–and still end up transforming thousands of lives. Even I, a scumbag, occasionally influence someone in a positive way.

Large churches look at small churches, with their seeker-insensitivity, lesser programs, uninspiring worship, etc., and wonder how God can bless them. And small churches look at large churches, with what they view as big-show, materialistic, consumer-driven, pop-culture approaches, and wonder how God can bless them.

We all know that God uses imperfect vessels. But is there, as Batali said, “power in the gospel”? The Bible says God’s Word won’t return void, and we’ve applied that in a certain way. Does the same thing hold true for proclaiming the Gospel? Is there truly power, some spiritual magic, in simply declaring the plan of salvation, whether the source is a bad movie, a lousy sermon, or a deficient church?

(The quote I started with comes from a fascinating online article called “Christians as a Niche Market,” which talks about the movie industry and the recent spate of Christian-themed movies.)