Church Guest: Northwood Church

Please forgive me for not staying constant with Rock in a Pond lately.  Life happens and it has happened a lot to me lately.  Thank you for your patience, I’ll post more later about what has been going on.

This is the second part of my mini-segement “Church Guest.”  You can find my first post of “Church Guest” here. 

This week I’ll be sharing my personal experience at Northwood Church.  If you haven’t driven by its facility on the corner of Rufe Snow and N. Tarrant then you haven’t had the chance to say, “dang, that’s a nice building!”  To say I really like the facilities at Northwood Church would be an understatement!  However, a negative aspect was that their coffee wasn’t easy to get to, which for me means I didn’t get any.  Also there was a large, stagnant body of people in the middle of the foyer (near the coffee) which took some weaving through. Once I got to the other side of the foyer, where there was less people, there was cooler air and more breathing room.  Now before you discredit me as being petty and blind to the fact that there were a lot of lives being affected by the church, I want to remind you that I’m going at this from a first time guest’s perspective!  And these are some of the things that guest like me will notice, think about, and remember. 

As we waited for the doors to open I was captivated by all the ministry opportunities there were at Northwood.  They probably had the best system I had seen for giving large amounts of information.  Instead of having a weekly booklet full of next month’s info they simply had kiosks set up in the foyer for each specific ministry: Haiti relief, Children’s ministry, Student Ministry, Men’s Ministry, Ladies Ministry, Mission opportunities, Hosting a foreign exchange student, a mother son picnic for mother’s day…  (apparently there is a reason it’s momma’s boy and not momma’s girl).   But seriously with so much going on instead of asking people to search for the info they wanted in some cluttered bulletin, they could easily walk up the kiosk get the necessary info or additional info in real-time (meaning there would be no playing of phone tag and redundant voice and e-mails).  Also at the end of the service they had some quick commercials for some of the most pressing announcements.

I’m also thankful that we knew a couple who attend there and had saved seats for us because we would have felt lost if we hadn’t.  Not that we didn’t know where to go, but I wouldn’t have been able to make up my mind!  Their place is huge inside!  I don’t know how many people it seats completely, but the lower section alone sits 600 some odd people.  Not only that, it is in amphitheater style, which means I got to see the dude across the way picking his nose…or was I the one picking my nose…maybe it was both.  Either way it was cool to be able to see others worshiping God and would encourage you, if you have the ability to, seat people so they can see others. 

The down side to all of this is that I’m not sure we would have been acknowledged by anyone other than the two men at the door if we had not met up with our friends.  They were a really friendly church, just not with guest.  Although to their defense, I imagine it is hard for people to recognize who is a new face and who isn’t.  Also we weren’t told where the connection card was which means were weren’t asked to fill it out.  Nor did we know when or where to put it after it was filled out.  By the time we realized all of this it was too late.  The sermon series idea was great, the preaching was great, the worship was great, the facilities and ministry opportunities were awesome, but there was a huge gap in communication.  To Northwood’s credit they did announce a new communications pastor the day we were there so they recognized the need and have addressed it.  Please don’t get me wrong, I love some of the people who attend there, I think the church is doing some awesome things, but from my guest perspective it would very difficult to get involved with if I was an introvert or if I wasn’t sure about the whole church thing.

In the next edition of “Church Guest” I will be talking about our first visit to KeyStone Church on Keller pkwy. 

What are some awesome things you have seen that churches do to communicate information?

What are some awesome ways you have seen churches reach out to guest (that you know from experience or first hand information works)?