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CFTROU 0169: Hospitality: Culture, Systems, & Shepherding

As we continue with the greatest hits from our recent Church for the Rest of Us Conference, we discuss how to prioritize a hospitality culture without sacrificing your systems and shepherding practices. Karen Brooks and Josiah Kish walk us through what this looks like in our context. Karen serves as the Director of Church Ministries at Family Church Gardens and Josiah serves as the Connections and Groups Minister at Family Church Downtown. They first walk us through the Biblical foundations of the teams they lead. Then, Karen defines hospitality at Family Church, while Josiah breaks down the tactics that our teams use to make sure the people in our neighborhood churches feel welcomed and at home. Karen and Josiah also talk about how to identify  people that are new to our churches, in a way that feels organic and engaging. They walk through setting up the right shepherding processes and how to follow up with each person with next steps that are specific to them. All of these intentional steps strengthens the relationships we build with people that are new to our churches. This episode is filled with actionable insight you can take and use right now with the resources you currently have.

Key Points From This Episode:
• A look at how a sampling of our neighborhood churches operate within their demographics.
• Defining hospitality in this context as removing obstacles for people to hear the gospel.
• Tactics we use to help make people feel at home in our churches.
• How to separate new members from regular attenders without alienating either group.
• The importance of entry points and processes for building a discipleship pipeline.
• How to set the right shepherding processes and why a team huddle is an excellent idea.
• The inconvenience (and necessity) of making the church feel small.
• Using collaboration in leadership meetings and book studies to help people take their next steps in Christ.

We want to, across the board, make church feel like home; make it feel small so that you feel like you’re part of the family. Click To TweetWe don’t have all the magic answers, but we’re learning and we have a great culture of collaboration. We love doing this together. Click To Tweet

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Karen on LinkedIn

Family Church Downtown

Family Church Gardens

Jimmy on Twitter

Leslee on Twitter

Family Church Network

Family Church on Facebook

Family Church on Instagram

Church for the Rest of Us on Twitter

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