Top 10 Creative Church Welcome Ideas - Online Church Edition

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In the digital age, the online church platform has become a gateway for newcomers to explore faith and spirituality from the comfort of their homes. As church leaders, it's essential to create a welcoming atmosphere that embraces new attendees and facilitates their journey of discovery. In this article, we'll delve into ten creative ideas specifically designed to make newcomers feel valued and engaged in the online church community. From personalized greetings to interactive elements, these strategies aim to cultivate a sense of belonging and connection right from the start. Join us as we explore how these innovative approaches can help your online church ministry extend a warm and inclusive welcome to those embarking on their spiritual journey.

Say good morning with a virtual coffee hour

The coffee station in a real-life church building is often a gathering area for conversation and caffeine. While you can’t reach through the screen and hand your guests a fresh cup of coffee, you can host a time before the livestream starts where members and guests alike are encouraged to mix and mingle.

Virtual church platforms such as Altar Live offer separate digital lobby spaces or livestream watch party tables that are perfect for these types of interactions. 

Give a live welcome message on the stream

Don’t underestimate the importance of bringing your online viewers live. When the livestream can react and adapt live to the virtual audience, it feels less like a TV. show and more like a live event.

If your church is fully online, you might consider having the speaker say hello to members and guests as they see them in the chat. In a hybrid church, this isn’t always possible. Consider a more general message to the online viewers, but be sure to include online-specific information.

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Examples:

Good: “Welcome to everyone joining us online!”

Better: “Welcome to our online community! I saw some great discussion in the chat this morning - just for the record, I personally prefer vanilla.”

Make visitor information easy to access

Visiting a new space - even online - can be an overwhelming experience. Make sure that visitor information (and even just general service information) is available.

Consider creating pre-event slides that include a link to a visitor information site, or include key info such as giving links or upcoming events. You may also want to create specific announcements for this information to make sure everyone can access it quickly and easily.

💡 Did you know? When you publish an announcement on Altar Live, it doesn’t go away. Even if a guest joins late, they can see all the announcements previously made under the announcements tab.

Send a follow-up church welcome letter (or email)

A well-crafted follow-up email is a great way to acknowledge visitors who have taken the time to give you their address and to keep the conversation going.

When writing a welcome letter, it’s tempting to put all the upcoming groups and events in. However, taking a tone that focuses more on the visitor is more likely to get a positive response - the less it sounds like an ad, the better.

📚 Looking for more tips on writing a church welcome letter? Check out this article: How to Write An Engaging Church Welcome Letter.

Greet visitors directly

Bulk welcome messages from the pastor or speaker are nice, but sometimes a personal one-on-one from a member of your hospitality team means even more. Greeting guests and visitors directly opens up channels of communication for those who might not be ready to post a hello to the general chat.

Having a standard way to start the conversation, or an automated introduction message is great, but beyond that, it’s important to let your welcome team make the conversation their own. You want your guests to know they’re having a conversation with a real person, and not a robot reading a script.

Create a virtual “Welcome to Church” station

Creating a post-service welcome station is a great way to make visitors feel welcome. While stations like this often require visitors to take the initiative and visit the table on their own (both in-person and online), offering incentives (merch, information, etc.) or giving a personal invitation is a great way to increase traffic to your station.

Make your landing page visitor-friendly

Your landing page is most likely one of the first things visitors will see when visiting your church online. A well-kept landing page is an essential element of your welcome strategy.

A clean and simple landing page allows for easy navigation - consider using straightforward titles (i.e. Sunday Service, Wednesday Prayer) and simple graphics to make your page easy to use. Avoid using graphics with a lot of text, since this may appear differently on different screens, and cannot be read by a screen reader.

📚 Looking for more tips on creating a welcoming landing page? Check out this article: How to Create an Eye-Catching Landing Page for Your Online Church.

Use virtual church pew alternatives

An in-person service allows regular attendees who aren’t even members of your team to turn to the person next to them and say hello. While these interactions are best organic, you can still create environments that nurture them.

Altar Live uses watch party rows in the auditorium to create space for attendees to watch together and facilitate those “good to see you” conversations.

Send new members church welcome packets

While you might not be able to send a mug or Bible through email, you can still send digital welcome packets to make your visitors feel at home. Consider sending materials such as YouVersion invites, access to RightNow Media’s library, and of course a way to sign up for future messages.

Remember when they return

We’ve all been there - the awkward “Welcome! Is this your first time?” when it’s your 10th. Despite the good intention behind the welcome, the effect is the exact opposite - it’s difficult to feel part of a community when that community seemingly keeps forgetting you!

To avoid these interactions, keep track of any visitors who filled out connection cards or even had conversions where a name was exchanged with a member of your welcome team. Whenever your team meets, do a quick overview of who was there the previous week, any prayer requests that were given, and any other important information.

💡 Did you know? Altar chats are persistent, so your hosts can easily see what they last talked about with a guest week after week!

By fostering a welcoming atmosphere and providing avenues for engagement, churches can create a sense of community and connection in the digital space. As we all continue to navigate the evolving landscape of online ministry, maintaining an open, creative, and inspired mindset will nurture growth and inclusivity.

Who We Are

Altar Live is an online church platform designed for faith communities to livestream services and host interactive and engaging events.

Whether in your browser or mobile device, our simple, intuitive platform gathers your people together online in real-time. Here, they can worship together in watch parties, freely socialize at virtual tables together, and find private places to pray with each other.

Altar Live holds 3 major components: Events, Meetings, and Rooms.

With a church platform like Altar Live, anyone can easily create an engaging online church service that can bring people together regardless of location.

The Altar Live team is honored to be able to provide video conferencing software, consulting & training for churches, reach every person on the other side of the screen, and create a community online.

📞 Book a call with our online church engagement consultant who can help you increase engagement by over 50%