Law Two
The Law of Seven Touches

After fifteen years of existence most churches will be in a dying phase. But some churches start this process a few weeks after their inception. The second law that is particularly helpful in preventing or stopping the dying process is the law of seven touches. This law helps the church retain those who visit, and this is sometimes called “keeping the back door closed.” For many churches the back door seems to be much wider than the one in the front which results in the church losing more people than it takes in. When this happens, the church is obviously dying. The second law of sevens shows the church how to stop this from happening. Some pastors might be stating at this point, “I only wish we had visitors!” Please keep reading. The fourth law deals with the area of outreach. But before we go out and get visitors, studying this second law will help us know how to keep them when they do come.

The process of keeping visitors who come to a church is also called assimila-tion and it is the beginning step of making disciples. The church, in obeying the Great Commission must reach the lost AND tie them into a discipling program. Assimilation begins when a visitor attends his first service at the church.

The second law says that a visitor needs seven touches to feel accepted in the church. The first touch visitors have with the church is experienced when they attend their first worship service. In studying law one in the first chapter, we found that this “touch” is not the “first impression” a person receives, but it is the first actual contact with the facilities of a church. This service will inevitably affect the person’s attitude towards returning to the church. A Barna survey indicates that visitors make up their minds about returning to a church before they leave the very first service they attend. So what must a church do to keep this visitor?

Before we can answer this we need to remember some things we learned in the first law. The first law pointed out the importance of having seven appro-priate impressions. One of these impressions suggested the church must have a clear picture of whom they were called to reach. These persons they need to reach are known as their target audience. The target audience has likes and dislikes, needs and desires that the church must address if it plans to reach and keep them. This is particularly true in the style of worship the church pro-duces. To keep the visitor, the first thing the church will have to understand is what style of service the visitor or target audience enjoys.

The style of worship will attract the people God is calling the church to gather or assimilate. An older audience is more likely to enjoy a heavy organ sound with a lot of hymns. A service geared towards young people, on the other hand, would sound like a contemporary rock band to this same older audience. This often becomes a problem in starting new churches. As was pointed out earlier, most of a new church’s audience tends to be young families. Older church planting teams have a hard time identifying with this younger style of worship and will need to adapt, or try starting a church targeting an older audience. Starting a church to reach an older audience is a very difficult, if not impossible, task. The only place to plant an effective church for an older audience is in an area where older audiences are migrating and which does not already have established denominations to which that older audience is normally attached.

The first touch would then be that touch a visitor has with the first worship service. This law of “the seven touches,” is derived from studies conducted by The Church of The Nazarene. Their studies show that a visitor needs to be physically touched by members of the congregation to feel loved and accepted. Such a touch could be anything from a simple handshake to a hug or, in some cultures, even a kiss on the cheek. This then constitutes the second touch. The second touch may begin before the visitor enters the worship service and should be felt by the visitor in the parking lot.

A well organized church, with the second law of touch in place, will have a parking lot attendant who is trained to seek out visitors. His job includes looking for a person or family whom he does not recognize and directing them to parking places near the door that he saves for visitors. It needs to be emphasized here that in the small church, visitors want to be inconspicuous so they do not like to park in a parking spot allocated for “visitors.” They also want to park as close to the door as they can. Because everything is new and unfamiliar, they want to be able to leave as quickly as possible. So parking near to the door is important to the visitor. In a large church where there are so many people that a visitor feels inconspicuous anyway, marked parking for visitors near the door is acceptable.

Both psychology and sociology tell us that mankind is uncomfortable with the unfamiliar. The more unfamiliar it is, the more uncomfortable a person is. The more uncomfortable he is, the more he doubts. The task of the church is to make church as comfortable as possible for the visitor without compromising the church’s theology or program. The second law of seven touches tries to do this by showing love and acceptance. Understanding the visitor’s fears and helping him feel at ease starts with the parking attendant. He is to park them in a comfortable spot and he is the first one to help them feel accepted by shaking their hands or giving them the appropriate greeting. This parking lot attendant will then escort the visitor to the “visitor’s door” where they are again touched in a loving way by greeters. Greeters give the third touch of love.

Greeters in the church should have the outgoing, accepting personality of someone with what is known as the “spiritual gift of encouragement.” Many churches make the mistake of rotating the greeters at the church door. This is particularly a problem in large churches. In the large church the only person the visitor might get to know is the greeter at the door. If this greeter changes every week or month, then the visitor ends up facing the unfamiliar more than the familiar. To help close the “back door,” the church will need to keep the same familiar greeters at the same doors of the church on a con-sistent basis. Churches who place greeters with the appropriate giftings will find these greeters really do not want to change from either their doors or from their greeting tasks.

After the greeter welcomes the visitor with the appropriate touch, he will then introduce the visitor to “shuttlers.” The role of the shuttler is a ser-vant’s role, and is done by one with the gift of service. The shuttler does not need the flamboyant personality of the greeter, but he or she does need to be courteous. The shuttler must give another appropriate “touch,” the fourth touch the visitor receives. His job is simply to escort the visitor to the visi-tors Sunday School class or to “shuttle" them to the church services. On the way to the class or service, the shuttler is to show the visitor where every-thing is located that the visiting family might require. The shuttler needs to point out the restrooms, and (as appropriate) the locations of the nursery, children’s classes and children’s church. Many churches try to use the greeters for this shuttling task but this leaves the church door unattended and asks a greeter to do what most greeters do not like to do or are not gifted to do.

In the class or at the door of the worship service, the visitor should receive another loving touch by either the class greeter or, in the case of entering the sanctuary, a staff person responsible for this ministry.

The final three touches must be arranged by the church to be administered prior to the visitor leaving the church. Perhaps the most effective way to do this is to have the visitor sign the guest-book. A guest book attendant, with the appropriate gifting and training, is the best person to encourage a visitor to sign in and make sure the guest receives another loving touch. Inviting visitors to a visitor’s lounge to meet the pastor(s) is another recommended method of offering loving touches from your church. It is suggested that the last touch of love be from the pastor who preached that service and that it be the last touch the visitor receives before going home. The first and last touches are the most important in keeping the visitor. It begins with the parking attendant before the visitor comes in the door and ends with the pas-tor as he leaves the door of your church. Seven touches of love will keep the back door closed and help in the assimilating or discipling program of a Great Commission church.

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