Laurie KennedyI delivered six boxes of books to a Christian used book store. I met four men sitting having coffee and a lady working at the counter. Without putting down his coffee, one of the men told me they were not interested in my books. I returned home with my Bible commentaries, reference material, some with sermon notes and ideas scribbled in the margin. Many by famous authors. A quick call to another Christian used book store and all my books have a new home.

I bought a new lawn mover. It was hard to start, coughed and needed a rest every 20 minutes. I returned the faulty lawn mower, received my money back less a 20% re-stocking fee (even though they agreed the lawn mower was faulty). I went to another store, bought a similar lawn mower and the sales person confirmed the Lawn Mower hospital would fix it for free.

While travelling to speak at a leaders retreat in a beautiful mountain resort, a major airline delivered me on time, but lost my luggage. Imagine the challenge of arriving in a new location with people I didn’t know and no luggage. However, the next day the Airline found my luggage, accepted full responsibility, gave me a discount on my next flight, flew it to me and hired a taxi to deliver it to our weekend resort. The most amazing thing is they treated me so well. I wrote the president of the airline and thanked him for the great job they did, even though they lost my luggage.

Do guests feel welcome, encouraged and comfortable in your church? Or, do they visit and leave never to worship with you again. George Barna tells us in A Fish out of Water, “The most dramatic effect of Christian leadership… is felt more so by the day-to-day ideas, conversations, choices, and activities of individual believers in the workforce, the marketplace, the halls of leisure and other public forums.” Seek out a few non-church folks this week and ask them what you could do to improve the experience for your weekly guests.

Leadership is demonstrating God’s love through positive guest service.

Yours in Service,

Laurie D. Kennedy
Leadership Coach
Jethro Group
ldkjethrogroup@gmail.com