If someone in your suburb wanted to find a church this Sunday… could they actually find yours?
In this episode, Pete Hughes chats with Phill Morrow, from ChristLife Presbyterian in West Toowoomba, about how to ensure your church is findable. Sometimes it’s the simple things that actually really make a difference in raising awareness: clear websites, signage, Google listings and welcoming spaces are all key aspects churches can’t overlook.
- Why hospitality starts before someone walks through the door
- The hidden barriers that stop newcomers attending church
- Ideas for churches who both own and don’t own their spaces
- How small improvements can support evangelism and gospel growth
Toolbox:
The Great Dechurching by Jim Davis and Ryan P. Burge
Episode 354: Making Your Church Accessible to People With Disabilities (Louise Gosbell)
Episode 389: Welcoming In Action: Live from Kellyville Anglican Church
Secret Shopper Checklist (DO WITH A CAMERA)
Credits:
This episode was brought to you by Exdia
The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia
To pray for Reach Australia, join our WhatsApp Group
For ideas or questions please email [email protected]
Support Reach Australia’s online library
Transcript:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00;00;08;12 – 00;00;33;05
Pete Hughes
Gidday I’m puce and welcome to the One Thing. It’s a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for gospel centered ministry every episode. If you haven’t noticed, our past episodes, make sure you go back and listen to those. They’re fantastic. Right? Resources that are they. Now, we want to talk about churches. I remember someone telling me or asking me, if your church closed tomorrow, would anyone notice?
00;00;33;06 – 00;00;53;23
Pete Hughes
And I think it’s a great diagnostic question. Being findable online, physically, relationally, whatever you need to be able to be found in order for people to be able to come to your church. Today we have a guest, Phil Murray, from across Clark Presbyterian in West Toowoomba. Phil, great to have you here. Welcome to the podcast today.
00;00;54;01 – 00;00;55;10
Phill Morrow
Thanks for having me.
00;00;55;12 – 00;01;00;25
Pete Hughes
Okay. You’re into Kumba. What makes Toowoomba Toowoomba?
00;01;00;28 – 00;01;16;18
Phill Morrow
Toowoomba is the garden city. It’s beautiful. It’s basically the Garden of Eden up here. Yeah. It’s a beautiful place. Great climate. We, I know Canberra likes to claim that they are the Garden City, but Toowoomba is the real. And that’s the real deal.
00;01;16;21 – 00;01;19;21
Pete Hughes
You don’t even have the politicians, so it makes it so much better just for that, I think.
00;01;19;21 – 00;01;21;18
Phill Morrow
But that’s true.
00;01;21;21 – 00;01;34;19
Pete Hughes
There’s my cynical Australian ism coming through here. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, we are going to be talking about, churches. So but for now you have a press play on another episode of The One Thing be findable.
00;01;34;22 – 00;01;56;02
Speaker 3
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00;01;56;05 – 00;02;07;28
Speaker 3
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00;02;08;01 – 00;02;25;07
Pete Hughes
So you’ve thought a little bit about how to make your church final. What’s the most invisible church that you’ve ever seen? Oh, I mean, it sounds like a, it’s an irony. Ironic question, really. But, is there a church that exists, but no one can find it? You’ve come across.
00;02;25;10 – 00;02;47;05
Phill Morrow
Yeah. I heard a story, from some friends, and they were on holiday, and they wanted to visit, a church that they knew and, had heard of it. Met in a school. They found it on the website. They got to the school, and they just couldn’t find where they were meeting. They like, but walking through, they, like, went over and across an oval.
00;02;47;05 – 00;02;53;10
Phill Morrow
And at one point they even got swooped by plovers, deer plovers in New South Wales. They kind of like, dude.
00;02;53;10 – 00;03;01;11
Pete Hughes
They are the most annoying birds in the world. Apart from seagulls. But yes, you’re right. Yeah, that’s not exactly a welcoming moment, but yeah.
00;03;01;14 – 00;03;21;13
Phill Morrow
And they couldn’t find it. And they gave up like some Christians who wanted to go to church couldn’t find it. Got swooped by plovers and went home. And you just think, man, imagine if God, was bringing someone who wasn’t a Christian to hear the good news. And, and, you know, if Christians give up and can’t find it.
00;03;21;16 – 00;03;23;28
Phill Morrow
What about those people?
00;03;24;00 – 00;03;41;17
Pete Hughes
Yeah, that’s exactly I think that’s exactly the question. How, if it’s if it’s hard for you to be found people who aren’t motivated or just that. Yeah. It’s a it’s a nervous thing to go to a church and just being able to find it. Okay, let’s let’s try and get a little bit of your context. So Toowoomba, it’s the garden city.
00;03;41;17 – 00;03;44;05
Pete Hughes
It’s the most beautiful place in in Australia.
00;03;44;07 – 00;03;45;26
Phill Morrow
It’s great recognizing that.
00;03;45;27 – 00;03;57;18
Pete Hughes
Yeah I haven’t been there but I’m just taking your word for that. There’s new families, new estates coming in. So how does being findable actually matter for you in this place?
00;03;57;20 – 00;04;21;07
Phill Morrow
Yeah, like, I guess, you know, it’s similar to a lot of places, right? Like a lot of new growth. People move a lot now as well. So people, often trying to find a new church, I think when they move to town and that, the stories we get from people, it takes a long time. There’s also, like that, the great deep church.
00;04;21;10 – 00;04;39;07
Phill Morrow
You might have heard of that book coming out of the US about just the greatest number. I think it was like 40 million people or something. They used to go to church ten years ago, like 15 years ago or something, not only to do in the US. And so, you know, sometimes I just moved and didn’t find something or during Covid or something like that.
00;04;39;09 – 00;05;04;17
Phill Morrow
And yeah, like it just people just need to be able to find a church. People often have like that kind of, you know, brand loyalty or denominational loyalty as much where they go. Oh, well, I’ll just go to the local Presbyterian or I general Baptist or whatever. And yeah, like just, if you don’t know where it is, how you meant to go, you know?
00;05;04;20 – 00;05;23;12
Pete Hughes
Okay. So is this is this just a marketing thing, like, in terms of just how we think about being findable? Is there is there some sort of theology that we need to think about as we do this, or is it just purely it’s a marketing exercise and let’s call it what it is, what shapes this conversation.
00;05;23;15 – 00;05;49;11
Phill Morrow
I guess, like, like underpinning is the fact that God is a God who reveals himself to people. And it for me, it’s a much simpler for him to just send an angel to tell everyone about the gospel of the Lord Jesus, but in his infinite wisdom, he’s decided to use fallible little communities of Christian people who, you know, both sinners and saints.
00;05;49;13 – 00;06;20;10
Phill Morrow
And that is his chosen way to bring the gospel, you know, of, the weakness of the Lord Jesus. But the strength, of that in just churches of normal people. And so. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, and you always hear the story of someone who watched a YouTube video or something and became Christian or read a book or whatever, but, at the end of the day, they have to join a church, they have to join a group of people, and they just can’t find you.
00;06;20;12 – 00;06;24;05
Phill Morrow
How how are they going to do that? You know.
00;06;24;07 – 00;06;31;02
Pete Hughes
It’s it’s it’s so important. And you’re right, it’s, the local church that God uses to make his gospel known.
00;06;31;04 – 00;06;52;15
Phill Morrow
I guess the other part is like, you know, First Corinthians, when the outsider is among you, there’s some expectation that our meetings are somewhat public and that outsiders will come into them, and that at that moment, this is actually one of the best ways for them to see into not just hearing the gospel, but what the what the gospel does to people.
00;06;52;18 – 00;06;54;23
Phill Morrow
So yeah, if they can’t find it, they can’t do it.
00;06;54;25 – 00;07;13;27
Pete Hughes
They can’t. Yeah. That’s right. I think that’s a really important thing because there is that sense of community. I mean, you see there in John 13 as well, where Jesus says, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. And it’s by this will people know that you’re my disciples. It’s you know, it’s not having all of your, being able to answer all the apologetic questions.
00;07;13;27 – 00;07;30;28
Pete Hughes
It’s actually the community that really shows whether we’ve held on to the gospel or not. So yeah. Okay. So what are some of the, let’s get back to findable and what are the practicalities of this? What are some of the things that we, we sometimes miss now, you mentioned that that family that we’re trying to find the church on the school grounds.
00;07;30;28 – 00;07;38;16
Pete Hughes
So signage is probably something. But what is some of the things that we, we missed when it comes to making ourselves findable?
00;07;38;18 – 00;08;04;05
Phill Morrow
Yeah. Like I guess we went through this story, in our church like four years ago, like we had signage up, but it was about 20 years old. And so we had signage, but, it just kind of faded. It just, it just, like, it didn’t give the clear bits of information, like the service time. And so, I think that makes makes it hard.
00;08;04;06 – 00;08;21;16
Phill Morrow
It’s hard when you, when you can’t tell it’s a church, like, you know, like I said, not all churches made a traditional church building. So our buildings on a traditional building, and sometimes you just can’t tell it’s a church. And so something that just communicates to the people that are driving past or walking past that it’s a church.
00;08;21;18 – 00;08;52;22
Phill Morrow
Well, can’t even find the front door. I know a church, that had re orientated the, just their building. I had a traditional building and they’re orientated for some good reasons in a renovation, but the front door was now the back of the stage and couldn’t open. And so they had people from the community who wanted to go to church who would come up and like, knock on the door and not be able to get into what was kind of traditionally the the front door of the church, like it was at another spot that you couldn’t find.
00;08;52;24 – 00;09;03;03
Phill Morrow
And so they had to re orientate the whole church so that people could find the front door. This is one of the things that everybody went to church. Oh, we all know it’s around the back up the corner, but only you know that.
00;09;03;06 – 00;09;21;04
Pete Hughes
Yeah I reckon the front door is one of the most, like, underestimated moments. But people go because if you are a regular, you just know what to do. You know what it looks like, you know that. But if you are a do you person, just where is it? It’s such a big thing. Yeah. Any other things that you can think of?
00;09;21;06 – 00;09;38;18
Phill Morrow
I think just having and like it depends on your established church and your own. Like, I’m, I’m in an established church space. Right? We own our own space. We can put our own signs up. But for us, that also comes with we have to maintain the site like we have this great all the fellow in church who just keeps the grounds looking nice.
00;09;38;18 – 00;10;00;13
Phill Morrow
And he says, I want someone driving past to look like someone lives here. So they’ll come in and hear the gospel, you know? And that’s different, I think, for the like, I think the church plant guys who are meeting in schools and rented spaces, like we can learn a lot from them because they work so hard because they have to put up and take down their signage and stuff every week.
00;10;00;16 – 00;10;17;08
Phill Morrow
Like even just notice boards like we noticed another church in town had a notice board at the front for foot traffic where they just change it over what the sermon series is like, playgroups, kids stuff, what’s going on? And so we put up a notice board at the front, and we just changed that over with.
00;10;17;08 – 00;10;23;17
Phill Morrow
What’s going on in the life of church just to catch the foot traffic that goes past that sort of stuff.
00;10;23;20 – 00;10;46;17
Pete Hughes
Yeah. Again, I think maintaining signage is it’s really important. I remember walking past a church fairly regularly and, the sign was meant to say all most welcome. And one of the L’s had fallen off the all, so it just looked like it almost welcome. Like we were gonna welcome you almost didn’t quite make it, but we gave it a good welcome.
00;10;46;20 – 00;10;47;28
Phill Morrow
Finally, al.
00;10;48;01 – 00;11;03;28
Pete Hughes
Yeah. Only ours are welcome. That’s the other thing. So. Yeah. Yeah. But, and the thing was, I actually walked past this church over the course of a year. It was near a doctor’s appointment we had to go to regularly, and they never changed it. I’m guessing it just takes what you just. I almost wanted to get a can of paint.
00;11;03;28 – 00;11;24;06
Pete Hughes
Just painted another ale back in there. It frustrated me enormously that there’s the church building being findable, but, I think for a lot of people just, the idea of just coming to a church service maybe a step too far for them is there’s sort of a middle step that that people can have in terms of having the church findable, but I haven’t quite got there on a Sunday yet.
00;11;24;07 – 00;11;27;11
Pete Hughes
Are there is there some middle ground there that just helps them along that journey?
00;11;27;17 – 00;11;40;09
Phill Morrow
Yeah, I think just getting them in the door is a good one. Because you get that classic thing where people say, oh, I’ve, I turned into a church building. The roof would fall down, if that sort of thing. But like.
00;11;40;11 – 00;11;43;18
Pete Hughes
I have a neighbor who literally says that every time I invite him to church.
00;11;43;18 – 00;12;09;01
Phill Morrow
Yeah, yeah. And so why do you host stuff that isn’t even churchy? So we’ve like, yeah, I will have, like, community carols is one thing. Like sometimes churches will have public space as a part of their church where people just, come onto it and use it like, you know, we have some grass at the back that kind of is used as a dog park, by local people, because there’s not a lot of green space around.
00;12;09;03 – 00;12;26;29
Phill Morrow
Another thing is just like hosting weddings, you know, community events, like, people want to use the building as a bit of touch and go in that like you want it to be, good for both of you. Another thing we did, because we have because we have the Garden City, we have the Carnival of Flowers every year, which is better than Florida.
00;12;27;02 – 00;12;34;09
Phill Morrow
And, as a part of that, we hosted, like, a Lego, flower event. And so we had just. Hey, I.
00;12;34;12 – 00;12;42;04
Pete Hughes
Know, let me just go through these a Lego flower event where you just got people to make bouquets out of Lego. Is that what it was? Yeah.
00;12;42;06 – 00;13;01;04
Phill Morrow
Well, that was a is another community group, actually, another church, needed a space to do it in. We were very, very happy to host it. And so yeah, people from the community came in. There’s all sorts of Lego stuff on. So it wasn’t necessarily a church event, but just got people through the building. We have one family who came along for the Lego thing and went, oh, we can check this out.
00;13;01;04 – 00;13;08;00
Phill Morrow
And now they come along to church. And it was just the fact that they’ve been through the building. Yeah, that was helped.
00;13;08;03 – 00;13;17;12
Pete Hughes
So just getting them on the property is actually a great step forward to getting them there on a Sunday to hear the gospel transform their lives. That’s an important thing.
00;13;17;14 – 00;13;27;02
Phill Morrow
Yeah. Just knowing you exist and knowing your church and being able to say, hey, you came and the roof didn’t fall down. That’s that’s a classic one. People love.
00;13;27;05 – 00;13;44;15
Pete Hughes
That. Yeah, yeah. Let me just go back a step. I wanted to ask you a little bit about, we’ve talked a bit about signage being findable physically. What about online? How much how important is it to be able to be found online these days? And what have you done to be found online?
00;13;44;17 – 00;14;05;00
Phill Morrow
Yeah. So it’s the website, right. Like that’s, you know, back in the day you’d have a your number in the phone book, but nowadays it’s, it’s all about a website. Right. And it just has to be a website. That’s clear. You know, it’s hard, like when you get on a church website and they’ve got the the Christmas event from six years ago is on the front.
00;14;05;00 – 00;14;26;19
Phill Morrow
And it just, you know, it doesn’t engender trust. They can’t find out about the church, can’t see the sermons. That’s that’s an important one. The other one is being, Yeah. Like fine if or just when people Google like church in your area. Like. And that’s all to do with all the stuff. I don’t understand SEOs or something.
00;14;26;21 – 00;14;34;21
Phill Morrow
Yeah. And that’s something we really struggle with working out. Like we actually got Reach Australia to come help us for the website. So there’s some free advertising for it.
00;14;34;23 – 00;14;54;14
Pete Hughes
I got yeah, I will make sure, in the toolbox there is a link to Reach Digital, which does all of that kind of stuff of and using, letters like SEO that I don’t understand either. Oh. Actually, one of the things I find annoying about websites is not having a clear picture of where you’re actually located on a Sunday.
00;14;54;21 – 00;15;14;02
Pete Hughes
Sometimes I have to really dig through that to go, okay, so where do you actually meet? And where is that? Even to the point of going, I don’t know where that suburb is. It’s assuming that people know the suburb and just assuming a whole bunch of information because that’s where everybody lives in that suburb. So sorry, that was just my little rant on.
00;15;14;04 – 00;15;22;23
Phill Morrow
And service time. If you have to scroll, you have to scroll to get to service time like that is too much.
00;15;22;26 – 00;15;41;00
Pete Hughes
Yeah. I reckon what you should do is, if you’re a, if you’re a pastor at church or you’re on a staff team some way, or your gospel worker, go and grab a neighbor who doesn’t go to your church and put a stopwatch on until the, find our website and find out what time and where our services are.
00;15;41;00 – 00;15;49;06
Pete Hughes
I just time to see how long it takes for them to find that. I reckon if it takes more than a minute, you need to do some work. That’s just. That’s just me. So, yeah.
00;15;49;06 – 00;15;51;06
Phill Morrow
I think that’s a good litmus test for.
00;15;51;08 – 00;16;04;26
Pete Hughes
Yeah. Sorry. I’m taking over the podcast. I should let’s get back to you. Once they found the church, what’s what’s some of the next steps that you’ve got in mind in terms of helping them on that journey? Being a part of the community?
00;16;05;04 – 00;16;25;10
Phill Morrow
Yeah, I guess that moves into the stuff you do to welcome people once you’re inside, right? It’s like hosting anyone in your house. You, you know, data. You know, where the toilets, you know where the change table is. But someone for the first time doesn’t. And so I just kind of clear signage inside the building. Accessible stuff.
00;16;25;10 – 00;16;54;12
Phill Morrow
We have a lady, in our church is an occupational therapist, and she’s really helping us to have accessible toilets and things that are just helpful for people who need that. Another thing that, we do is for that prompt, we do like a back to church Sunday once a year. And so we have like, we just put up a basically our own little billboard at the front of our church, where I just have it in some pegs in the ground.
00;16;54;14 – 00;17;13;22
Phill Morrow
And we have when we have a discover course on or we have a back to church Sunday or something that we’re inviting people to, or even the times for our Easter services. We just put it up there and people drive past and it’s just it’s just a prompt for people. Like I had one person say to me, oh, that’s that church.
00;17;13;25 – 00;17;25;07
Phill Morrow
You guys do the back to church Sunday, right? Oh wow. Yes. Another little prompt for people who maybe have have drifted out of church and just to be like, oh, maybe I should go back to church.
00;17;25;10 – 00;17;41;09
Pete Hughes
There is something about the fact that the building, like, people can drive past the building and think, oh, it only gets used on a Sunday, and if they’re not there on a Sunday, it can just look like an empty shelter. So having that ongoing sense of actually know there’s stuff going on here and you should come, you should be a part of it.
00;17;41;13 – 00;17;48;26
Pete Hughes
Yeah. Pastors are not marketing experts. How much time do the pastors need to be spending on this, and how much do they need to bring in other people?
00;17;49;04 – 00;18;16;20
Phill Morrow
Yeah, I guess it’s one of those things where as the pastor, you are often kind of leading stuff. And often this will involve other people paying for things like, you know, like websites and signage and that sort of stuff involves spending money. And so depending on your church, you might have some committee that’s involved in that. But, I think it’s great to get other people involved in that, particularly for stuff that’s not your area.
00;18;16;20 – 00;18;40;03
Phill Morrow
Like if like I there’s a God at church is great with websites. He’s really helpful with that. They have a young lady who’s fantastic with social media, and so she actually comes in and volunteers one day a week at church, and she, yeah, like, makes, the relays for the Tic tac, and the Instagrams and all those things, that I don’t quite understand.
00;18;40;05 – 00;18;44;20
Pete Hughes
Just say the rolling their eyes right now as you’re saying all those things. Yep, yep.
00;18;44;23 – 00;18;47;01
Phill Morrow
Yeah. They,
00;18;47;04 – 00;18;57;09
Pete Hughes
So it should this be a line item in a budget, do you think in terms of being findable as a church or something like that, that you’re actually investing not just time but money into this as well?
00;18;57;11 – 00;19;17;16
Phill Morrow
Yeah. And I think it’s helpful to, to lead because sometimes people go, well we don’t need that. We know where it is. But it’s helpful for people to understand that this is hospitality. Like if you are going to have people come to your house and you know that your sign out the front, they don’t know which number it is and they can’t find it.
00;19;17;18 – 00;19;38;11
Phill Morrow
And when they come, you know, they can’t find the front door of your house. That wouldn’t be very hospitable, very, very loving. But we want to invite people into our church. And so for having clear signage and a clear website, just a ways that we’re hospitable, I think you also just want to respect that respect the trust that people in church have.
00;19;38;11 – 00;20;03;08
Phill Morrow
You know, Mary has been praying for her neighbor for years, and she finally invites her to come to church. She’s she’s putting a lot of trust on the line here. And if her neighbor can’t find the church, can’t find the service time, and drives past at 17 times, like, that’s not respecting the trust that Mary has had to invite her friend to church.
00;20;03;08 – 00;20;11;08
Phill Morrow
And so I think you also want to be leading and pastoring people in know this is a this is a part of us doing that together.
00;20;11;10 – 00;20;34;29
Pete Hughes
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I think that analogy that you use earlier on of just making sure that people can find your house, like that’s really helpful, isn’t it? Like, yeah, the street I live in, a house is look very, very similar. And so the numbers really, really matter if someone’s coming to your house and having the light on, knowing where the front door is now, how people can get into the house, that’s all so important.
00;20;35;01 – 00;20;38;13
Pete Hughes
And yet we take it for granted with churches. Yeah.
00;20;38;16 – 00;20;53;09
Phill Morrow
There’s an older couple in our church who, when they do hospitality, they have a big paper sign with the number of their house and they go out and put it in front of their letterbox so that people can find it like that is, heart of hospitality.
00;20;53;09 – 00;21;17;10
Pete Hughes
That’s it is. It is. And that’s really what this question is about. It’s not just a marketing thing. It’s about being hospitable. Now, we have talked about we’ve kind of talked about this in terms of someone who doesn’t know anything about the church being able to find it. How important is it to be findable through networks? Because some people will often say, I’ve got someone who’s moving to to Walmart because I’ve heard it’s the most beautiful suburb in Australia.
00;21;17;12 – 00;21;23;13
Pete Hughes
Does anyone know a good church? How do we use networks to make ourselves findable?
00;21;23;16 – 00;21;48;03
Phill Morrow
Yeah, like I think that. And that’s a trust thing, too, right? Like, just earlier this year, I had a friend of mine who was in ministry, Tamara, actually. Anyway, and, he said, you know, there’s a guy moving up, you know, go on your church. Here’s the details. Check it out. I think, because trust is the trust is the currency of ministry, isn’t it?
00;21;48;03 – 00;22;03;08
Phill Morrow
Like you want to know that these people, can teach the Bible faithfully. They can love them and look after them. And so just, you know, I guess the people that, you know, like, through things like the Reach Australia conference, there’s a free ad for you, you’re doing.
00;22;03;08 – 00;22;03;21
Pete Hughes
All the.
00;22;03;21 – 00;22;21;09
Phill Morrow
Things. Thank you. Or, you know, people you went to college with and that kind of stuff, just hearing where other people are because I need that I need list in my mind as well. Like when people move to, you know, Sydney or somewhere that I know. And they ask me, oh, do you know a good church in that area?
00;22;21;11 – 00;22;37;14
Phill Morrow
Sometimes I’m like, I don’t know. But, you know, there are Facebook groups, of like different kind of passing denominations. You can ask, does anyone know a good church in that area? And I think, yeah. What does that mean? You know, you just want to, to be known so that people go, oh, when someone’s moving to Toowoomba.
00;22;37;17 – 00;22;41;11
Phill Morrow
Yeah. Go and check that out or.
00;22;41;13 – 00;22;58;01
Pete Hughes
Yeah. All right. So we’ve talked a lot about a whole bunch of things here. If there was one thing because this is the one thing, if there’s one thing you said, if if a church did this, this would make such a great difference. What would be the one thing.
00;22;58;03 – 00;23;26;15
Phill Morrow
I could one thing we did was just claim our Google listing. Like on Google, you you have your listing as like a business or whatever you claim that you own it as a church and you can put your phone number in it. You make sure you’re on Google Maps, it just makes you easier to find. And then nice and maybe like a monthly, update saying like, how many people Google the church, how many people used it to get our phone number?
00;23;26;15 – 00;23;41;15
Phill Morrow
How many people used it to, look at the website, and that sort of stuff. I think that’s a, that’s a because I think you’re right. What do we need to do? Like possibly to do one of things that will keep working for you over time, like get the website sorted and that’ll work for you over time.
00;23;41;23 – 00;24;06;18
Phill Morrow
But claim your Google listing, put your phone number up, put your opening hours. We had a guy who’d had a terrible diagnosis. He walked out and googled churches open, and because our office hours during the week have us open, it said we were open and he drove in, walked in the door and said, I need to speak to a pastor.
00;24;06;21 – 00;24;13;22
Phill Morrow
And that guy’s recommitted himself to faith since then. And that was just through having our opening hours up on the internet.
00;24;13;24 – 00;24;33;22
Pete Hughes
Wow. That’s that’s a big thing, because often people will put opening hours just as the church service on a Sunday. But your site is actually a great gospel opportunity just in that moment. So yeah. Okay, so get onto Google. Is the the one thing for you. I think that’s so true because we live in Google, don’t we?
00;24;33;22 – 00;24;39;17
Pete Hughes
Like, if you want something what do you do? You Google it like that’s that’s it’s like the thumbnail pages.
00;24;39;20 – 00;24;43;25
Phill Morrow
Yeah. It’s probably not old enough to remember phone books, but the least of it is.
00;24;43;28 – 00;25;01;19
Pete Hughes
That is so kind of you to say that, but I totally remember phone books. It’s it’s also, I think, great having that data that’s there. So if you’re doing a letterbox drop, you could actually sit there and go, how effective was that? Did our yeah, Google searches go up just from, doing a letterbox drop. So great.
00;25;01;19 – 00;25;22;26
Pete Hughes
Great advice. All right. In the toolbox. We got a bunch of stuff there. Phil’s already mentioned, reach Digital. I’ve got a link there. We mentioned the great D churchy. I think that’s really helpful book. Just to get your head around where, different trends are at the moment. Philip also mentioned something about, accessibility in churches.
00;25;22;26 – 00;25;42;05
Pete Hughes
And we’ve got an old episode, with Louise Gospel on, how to make your church more accessible. We’ve also got another one about welcoming in action. And it’s a video one it’s worth actually looking at just to get an idea of some of those things that are there. But one thing I would love you to watch, we’ve got a secret shopper checklist.
00;25;42;05 – 00;26;00;09
Pete Hughes
It’s a PDF. Download it. And what I’d love you to do is to, get your camera, get your phone out, go through what it’s like to be a new person. From the moment you get out of your car to the time you get into your church. It’s what you’ll notice when you do it with a camera as things that you will notice that you won’t.
00;26;00;12 – 00;26;17;07
Pete Hughes
You just sort of take for granted because you just do it automatically, and then go and have a look at your secret shopper checklist, see how well you did on that. I think that’s probably going to be a really helpful thing to do as we do this as a starting group. Thank you for taking time out a beautiful Toowoomba to, to talk to us about, being vital.
00;26;17;08 – 00;26;19;00
Pete Hughes
Really appreciate the wisdom in this.
00;26;19;03 – 00;26;22;05
Phill Morrow
That always be great to be on.
00;26;22;08 – 00;26;34;20
Pete Hughes
And if you think this is a helpful episode, why don’t you do us a favor? Pass it around. If you’ve got a staff team, this is probably going to be one of those ones that you do need to listen to as a staff team. I think use chat to. Do.
