If I walked into your church today, just how many people do you think would have said “Hello” to me?

Most churches think evangelism and visitor retention is a big deal. Churches create tactical plans, committees, strategy and more.

But the big secret is that it all starts with “Hello!” — Does EVERY PERSON in your church or ministry live this out?

One of my randomization rituals entails taking one day a month and committing to saying hello to EVERY PERSON that I cross paths with throughout the day. Sounds easy, sounds silly, but it is actually pretty hard to do! Our culture and society (especially in NYC!) has become a society of strangers existing together. Just get onto an elevator full of people and you’ll understand just how close we can be with others and still never bother to say a simple greeting.

If you are self-aware of this simple practice, you might be surprised at just how often you choose to look away, look at the floor, stay silent, or just simply walk right past people you do not know.

Remember that culture is formed top-down. So your behavior is critical in influencing how others in your spheres of influence actually act. What’s more is that I’m willing to bet that if everyone in your church has a mindset to simply say “Hello!” or “Good morning!” or “Good afternoon!” or “Hi there!” to every person they personally see coming into the building, you’re attendance will change within weeks. Seriously.

Do you yourself say “Hello!” to everyone you see at church? And what do you think about this one-word answer to visitor retention in your church? Please leave a comment below and share what you decide after reading this post.

If you look at the most successful salespeople in any industry, they are all diligent, focused and on point. They manage relationships well, they articulate benefits with clarity, and they always are moving to close the deal.

But if you take a closer look at the top of the food chain in any sales organization, there are basically two buckets in which you can put the pros into:

The best of the best either love it, or they shove it.
Which one are you?

The love it crew love the product or service they are pitching. In this method, their credibility lies in the fact they fully understand what they are talking about. This crew can explain things in ways that are personally relevant to the person sitting across the table. Why? Because they use it, they live it, and in the end, they succeed because they simply share it. That’s how they gain more customers.

The shove it crew doesn’t have any personal investment in the product themselves. All they are interested in is pushing the customer to sign on the dotted line whether it makes sense or not. They claim the product is exactly the medicine needed. “Our product will solve your problem,” whether you knew you had a problem or not to begin with! This approach is all about speed, agility, and understanding where any vulnerabilities may be located. The shove it sales pro’s mission is certainly to help. . . themselves! They see their own job solely as shoving the product down the prospect’s throats.

Both can be quite effective. The question is which is your choice in doing the job? Especially when your job is to demo something that is all Good News.

Penn (of Penn & Teller) speaks his mind about the responsibility Christians have for sharing the Good News. Proselytize!

No, don’t run out and get yourself a megaphone for the street corner. We don’t need Bible thumping maniacal representatives invading the public realm.

But take a good listen to how this Christian brother was received by Penn - the atheist, in this video clip:

Can you envision yourself making such a bold move,done in a way that keeps respect and integrity intact?

Now, would you push someone out of the way of an oncoming truck to save his life? Would you? Really?

I’m excited to join the vidcast tomorrow of Tim Keller and the Leadership Summit people over at Willow Creek.

But in the meantime, take a look at this interview where Tim Keller talks about the 4 or 5 ways in which evangelism must be different today in order to be impactful.

One of Dr. Keller’s key points specifically applies to urban centers, such as Redeemer’s setting: NYC.  He talks about how critical it is for the Church to really provide the tools, resources, modeling and teaching to its people how to integrate their faith **in** their work.

IMHO, he is spot-on in that cities tend to have more vocationally focused people (people who live to work, vs. work to live), so building out ministries such as www.faithandwork.org is quite mandatory if there is to be any impact.

But the lesson can be applied to much broader applications.  The Church today can’t just teach objective knowledge about the Bible.  It can’t just focus upon spiritual praxis.  It can’t just just provide moral teachings as well.   Not anymore.

When non-Christians are exposed to the Church’s message, they really need to see how it looks like if they were to step into the light.

The only way to do that is to build communities where this intentional integration of the Gospel into vocation that Dr. Keller talks about is vibrantly embraced and highly visible.

The new rules and approach to evangelism now take on a wholistic ministry approach.  You do see that, right?