Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Becoming a Visitor-Friendly Church

Cody Francis

01 A Winning First Impression

02 From Greeting to Serving Part 1

03 From Greeting to Serving Part 2

04 Guest-Friendly Worship Services

05 Guest-Friendly Follow-up

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp, held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, we're grateful for the opportunity to study together.

We want our churches to become centers of influence and of witnessing opportunities for you.

And so we pray you'll bless our time together this afternoon.

So what how many of you, I'm curious, how many of you have ever gone to a church that you've never been to before?

Were you just a little bit unsure of what you were going to find when you went to the church?

And it was probably, and you were an Adventist and you went to an Adventist church.

You knew what a quarterly represented, right?

And you, even if you had, you probably even knew what they were going to study for Sabbath school.

And you knew that probably there was going to be a little bit of a song service, maybe some mission report, there's going to be a study time, and then there's going to be a break, and then there's going to be everybody comes together and there's going to be, you knew the routine.

You're still just a little bit unsure what you're going to find.

We were on vacation 1 time and We were camping outside of, it was in Estes Park, so right outside of Rocky Mountain National Park.

And there's a little Adventist church in Estes Park, which I imagine probably during the summer and maybe the winter too, depending on ski season, has about as many visitors as it does members there.

And so we went there, and so my sister and I were, well, our families, we were camping there together, we had met there, and we were doing some hiking and things in Rocky Mountain National Park.

And so we went, said, well, let's go to church.

So my wife and me and my 3 daughters, and then my sister and her husband and she has 1 daughter and 2 sons and so there were 10 of us that came to church now and there were 6 kids in there from I don't remember, this was a couple years ago, but probably from ages of, I don't know, 6 to 15 or something like that.

Now if you had 2 families walk into your church with 6 kids, what would your church do?

So some churches might have 0 Sabbath school classes, right?

And Some have full complements of Sabbath school classes.

And so we walked in and I like to get to church early.

Even if I'm driving 2 hours away, I like to get to church early.

And so we got there and I think they were getting the, we went in the front door, what we thought was front door, which was the front door.

They were, We heard some noises or something down in the fellowship hall, getting food prepared or something like that.

I don't remember all the interactions there.

But The lay pastor that was there, he was a retired canvasser, I think, and was serving as a lay pastor there.

I think they had 1 Sabbath school class, so all of our kids and maybe a couple others, but probably it was mainly our kids that were in that class.

And he went down and went there, and I'm telling you, he learned not only our names, he learned my daughter and her cousin's doll names that they had with them, and mentioned them in the sermon.

It was maybe not the best first interactions, what we're talking about, first impressions, but they embraced.

And my sister said afterward, she said, they live a lot closer to there than we do.

She said, you know, I was a little nervous going there, but if we come back again, I'll go to church there.

She's an Adventist who is not sure whether she wanted to go to church there or not because she'd never been there before, didn't know anybody there, even though was an Adventist.

I want you to think if that's our experience, that we have a little bit of just wondering what's going to happen.

What about non Adventist, a non-Christian coming into a church that they know nobody at, they don't know the lingo, They don't even know if they're supposed to be there or not.

Do you know there are churches that lock the doors?

Well, actually there's many more churches that lock the doors now because of safety concerns.

But there are, used to be, I was, we had a, when I was doing an evangelistic series and it was a Sabbath-keeping church, in order, and this couple was telling me about their experience going there, they had to go and have an interview with the pastor before they were allowed to enter the doors to come to church.

So that's not common, but it is there And so people don't even know if they're gonna be there, if they're even supposed to be there.

We need to do as much as we can to bring those barriers down so that people can come.

I was doing some, for those that don't know, I'm the ministerial director here in Michigan, and so I interact with your pastors a lot.

And so the, or maybe they, I don't know, anyway, I interact with pastors.

And so at 1 point we were doing a survey from all the pastors in Michigan.

It didn't include everybody, but we were surveying to see how many, not just how many baptism, wasn't how many, but it was within the last 2 or 3 years, what the source was, first point of contact for those that were baptized.

What their, where they made a decision for baptism, how long they had been studying, or how long the church had been working with them and if they were still in the church.

So those were our 4 questions that we were asking for each person that was baptized in the churches and I think we had data of over a thousand maybe it wasn't over a thousand anyway it was it was multiple hundreds at least 6 700 maybe over a thousand data points there.

And then we look to see, okay, where are people coming from?

Where do you think the biggest first point of contact, When I say first point of contact, I mean if somebody comes the first time to an evangelistic series and that's the first time the church has contact with them, then I'd put evangelism.

If somebody comes for the first time to a health class and 12 years later they're baptized, their first point of contact was that health class.

And so, any guesses what your first point of contact is for the majority of those that are baptized here in Michigan?

So those first point of contact with 75% of those baptized is friends, family, or biological family.

So biological family, I would mean like my daughters, they were, my youngest was just baptized a few weeks ago.

And so that's what I would categorize as biological.

Family would be your sister, that whatever, your grandpa, your whoever, aunt, whatever, that's family.

And then friends is somebody that their first point of contact with the church was a friend.

And it's about evenly split, not quite evenly, but among those 3 categories, Friends and Family makes up 75% of those surveyed for baptism.

So now, the point of where they make a decision is different.

So for example, friends and family can have Bible studies and make a decision for baptism.

So we have higher numbers for Bible studies, evangelistic meetings, those type of things once we look at where they made a decision.

And so what that shows me is we are good at bringing the people, or maybe not good, we're stronger at bringing the people that already have a connection with us to church rather than those that don't have a connection.

Now there's 25% still that are broken up into a number of different categories.

Guess what the number 2 category, if we take out friends and family, what the number 2 category is?

So I would, employee would still be friends, but I would classify as friends.

So it's actually, I grouped this together.

It's those that just walk into your church.

They watched Amazing Facts, they saw In the Days of Noah, they watched your church livestream, they found your church phone number and called your church and came to church, any of those.

So online media is becoming, it's a good source and they just walk in.

Now what that tells me, now and then if you're interested for number, and all of these are pretty close together in that 25% category after walk-ins is public evangelism.

And so, and then we have, but we have like, then we do have the VBSs and the Bible studies and Strong Tower, which are like 1 to 5% in there, all of those.

And so, but your second most, if you exclude friends and family, people just walking into your church is the biggest source of baptisms.

Series

Becoming a Visitor-Friendly Church

01 A Winning First Impression

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Sharing the Three Angels’ Messages in 30 Seconds

01 Sharing the Three Angels’ Messages in 30 Seconds

1h 4m

Emmanuel Institute - Ignite Your Church

Ignite Your Church - Part 13: Disturbing our Monotony

1h 15m

Becoming a Visitor-Friendly Church

04 Guest-Friendly Worship Services

1h 1m

Emmanuel Institute - Ignite Your Church

Ignite Your Church - Part 9: The Implementation Guide

59m

Decision - Discipleship - Destiny

01 From Decision to Discipleship

1h 9m

Becoming a Visitor-Friendly Church

03 From Greeting to Serving Part 2

1h 1m

Give Me this Church

47m

Decision - Discipleship - Destiny

03 Discipleship to Destiny

1h 5m

Let My Pastors Go: 1844 to Heaven, Why So Long?

03 More than Monotonous: Partnering with God’s Purpose, Plan, and Power

1h

Presenting Persuasive Appeals During Keys to Revelation

05 Presenting Christ Centered Appeals with Confidence

1h 1m

Ignite Your Local Church for Mission

Mission of Attendance and Involvement

1h 4m

Sound Doctrine