First impressions are not always correct, but they are difficult to change.

• A nonresponsive salesperson allows you to wander throughout the store without approaching you.
• A waitress makes takes a long time before approaching your table.
• The promise of great service at your local car dealership leaves much to be desired.
• A guest visits a Bible study group but is ignored while group members carry on conversations with one another.

Great organizations know the power of authentic hospitality, and they work hard to create cultures that make customers and clients feel great about choosing them. Sadly, biblical hospitalityis lacking in many Bible study groups. Although groups would rate themselves as “very friendly,” many guests would not.

The lack of hospitality is crippling the attractiveness of groups to outsiders. It has been said that connection and community will win out over content in post-COVID churches. Carey Nieuwhof made that prediction a few years ago, reminding us that people can get great preaching and Bible studies in just a matter of seconds through an internet search. What they cannot get, however, is something every one of us needs: in-person, human connection. The pathway to genuine, biblical community begins and ends with the degree to which Bible study groups break down cliques and establish real community. The church and its groups needs a resurgence of biblical hospitality.

How can Bible study groups start fresh in their efforts to be welcoming and open? Is it possible for groups to refocus on making strangers feel like friends? What is the likelihood that functionally closed groups could begin a new era of biblical hospitality? What would they have to change in order to break down cliques and become inclusive, inviting, and perhaps even irresistible? Here are seven ways that groups can welcome people aboard.

1. Group leaders must become “hospitality champions.” For real change to take place in groups, a catalyst is needed. Group leaders who embrace the idea of providing a higher level of biblical hospitality can become that catalyst when they cast vision for it and model the behavior they want to see. Group leaders can lead group members to understand the needs of guests for relationships, to approach them and engage them in genuine conversation, and to take a genuine interest in them.
2. Adult groups will enlist a Hospitality Leader or a Hospitality Team. There are members of every adult group who are “people persons.” They have the gift of gab and can connect with people instantly. These group members excel at making people feel comfortable, especially newcomers. These gifted group members enjoy introducing guests to others, sitting with them in the worship service, and inviting them to lunch and other activities.
3. Everyone in a group will take ownership of hospitality. While it is helpful to have a person (or persons) designated as hospitality leaders, making people feel welcome in really everyone’s job. Guests can quickly sense if they are welcome or not by the way the members of a group either engage with them. This is where a catalytic group leader can make a difference in motiving his or her group to own the responsibility of making every guest feel welcome.
4. Kids’ leaders can create welcoming environments through follow-up. Biblical hospitality doesn’t necessarily start and end in the classroom! Kids’ leaders can extend hospitality into the homes of children by intentionally following up with kids and parents. Notes, postcards, text messages, and other appropriate forms of contact can ensure that families know they are wanted in the church’s ministry to kids.
5. Student ministry group leaders will immerse themselves in the lives of students. There’s more to student ministry than Sundays and Wednesdays. To create a hospitable, wholistic ministry environment, student leaders must get mixed up in the lives of teenagers. It’s messy, but you can’t disciple, cheer, encourage, discipline, and pray for students from a distance and create a warm, welcoming, and inviting ministry that students want to be a part of.
6. Adult group members will wear name tags. People often don’t fully engage another person in conversation because they either don’t know the person’s name, or they’ve forgotten it. In either case, people don’t like to look forgetful, and they certainly don’t want to be embarrassed because they can’t call the person by name. Simple stick-on “Hello, My Name Is ______” name tags are a great solution to this problem and get groups talking. Groups should wear them every time they come together, which will spark more conversations and connections than ever before.
7. Groups will multiply and start new ones. A truism of group life is that when a group has been together longer than twenty-four months, it turns inward. At that point, it is very difficult to send guests to that group and expect them to make significant relational connections. Why is this? After being together two years or more, group members have spent a lot of time praying together, studying together, talking together, serving together, and having fun together. Relationships and connections have formed, and they often have no bandwidth for newcomers to connect with them. New groups, however, have people with time, energy, and interest in developing new relationships – it’s one reason they are part of a new group launch. Guests often find a higher level of hospitality in these new groups.

In my new book, Welcome Aboard!, co-writers Delanee Williams, Zac Workun, and I help readers understand how kids, student, and adult groups can all become much more welcoming towards guests. A downloadable conference plan gives pastors and church leaders an instant way to teach the content during a training time. Welcome Aboard! Is available at lifeway.com in print and digital forms.