Improving Our Welcome: Listening and Responding to Newcomers in Order to Improve the Hospitality of Weyburn Free Methodist Church

Abstract

This action research project used interviews to gain insight into the experience of newcomers to a rural church, used group discernment techniques to generate a response, and then evaluated the process and outcomes with developmental evaluation in order to recommend ongoing adjustments to the congregation and leadership. Fourteen people who first encountered the programs and people of Weyburn Free Methodist Church (WFMC) after 2009 were chosen by the research team and interviewed. After group discernment meetings analyzed the content of the interviews, the research team recommended that a Welcome: Connect team be implemented in the church foyer on Sunday mornings, monitored by ongoing developmental evaluation. After eight months, follow-up interviews with four of the initial subjects and six newcomers who came to WFMC during the study were used, alongside church statistics, to detect any changes. Improvements were observed in newcomer connection, congregational attitudes of hospitality, intentionality of the research team, and leadership competencies.