The holiday season kicks off earlier than most of us want to admit. Halloween is barely over before Thanksgiving plans start rolling, and by then Christmas and New Year’s are already on the horizon. At home, it’s the season of company coming. Whether it’s neighbors stopping by with kids in costumes, extended family arriving for turkey, or friends dropping in for hot cider, we get our homes ready for guests. We scrub the house, pull out the good dishes, light a few candles, and do our best to make folks feel welcome.
But here’s the reality check: if you’ll do all that for family or friends in your home, why wouldn’t you do at least that much for the guests who are going to show up at your church this holiday season? For many of them, it may be the only time all year they walk through your doors. And if we’re honest, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.
So let’s talk hospitality — not the “smile and shake a hand” variety, but the kind that really makes an impression. The kind that moves a first-time visitor to say, “That’s a church I want to come back to.”
Here are seven holiday hospitality tips for your church, straight out of the same playbook you already use at home.
1. Clean Your House → Take Inventory and Clear the Cobwebs
At home, the first thing you do when you know company’s coming is clean up. You vacuum, you dust, you get rid of the cobwebs in the corners. The same thing needs to happen in your church.
Walk your building with the eyes of a guest. What looks tired, cluttered, or neglected? Outdated bulletin boards with yellowing flyers? A nursery closet that smells like last year’s Goldfish crackers? Storage that’s spilling into hallways? It’s time to deal with the mess.
I once visited a church during the holiday season where the first thing I saw in the lobby was a broken copy machine shoved into a corner with a handwritten note: “Needs repair.” Let’s just say that wasn’t the impression they meant to give their guests.
This is the season to do inventory, clear the clutter, and freshen up your spaces. Clean bathrooms, clean classrooms, clean worship centers. Wipe down the windows. Shampoo the carpets. In short, make it clear that you were expecting company — and you’re glad they came.
2. Get Out Your Best Linens → Bring Your Excellence
At home, when company’s coming, you don’t throw paper towels on the table and call it good. You get out the nice linens, the polished silverware, maybe even the fancy dishes you only use a couple of times a year. Why? Because you want your guests to feel honored.
The church equivalent is this: bring your excellence.
I’m not talking about being slick or showy. I’m talking about giving attention to the details that tell your guests, “We were expecting you, and we value you.” That means clear signage that makes it obvious where to park, where to drop off kids, and where to find the bathrooms. It means bulletins or digital slides that are neat, typo-free, and easy to follow – even if the guest has never been to a worship service before. It means greeters who aren’t just handing out papers at the door, but who actually make eye contact and engage people with warmth and a real conversation.
And don’t overlook excellence in your preaching. Holiday-season guests aren’t showing up because they’re dying to hear another theological lecture or a revisit down Tradition Lane. They’re looking for something that makes sense in their real lives. If your sermon speaks directly to the stress of family gatherings, the pressure of finances, or the ache of loneliness this time of year, you’ll have their attention. Give them a message so relevant and valuable that they’ll want to come back for more … not just because you delivered it well, but because the content mattered.
I’ve been in churches during the holidays where this was done beautifully. I’ve also been in places where it looked like the congregation had just dusted off the same bulletin template from 1985 and hoped nobody would notice. Trust me, they notice. Guests may not know what an invocation is, but they know the difference between “good enough” and “we cared enough to prepare.”
This is the season to step it up. Tune the sound system. Walk through the building to see what a guest will see. Polish the rough edges. And for heaven’s sake, don’t save your best for Easter. The holiday season brings in more first-time guests than you may realize – and they deserve your best linens.
3. Decorate for the Season → Create a Guest-Ready Environment
At home, when the holidays roll around, you don’t just leave things as they are. You put a pumpkin on the porch, hang a wreath on the door, maybe string up some lights. (Or if you’re like me, you connect your computer to the props and the FM transmitter for your annual light show … but I digress!) Decorations don’t change the structure of your house, but they do change the feel. They say, “We’re in the season, and you’re welcome here.”
Your church needs that same guest-ready environment. Seasonal touches matter. A welcoming entryway with a splash of fall color in October, candles and greenery in December, or even something as simple as festive signage that makes the place feel alive. Guests expect your space to reflect the season they’re walking through. If the only nod to Christmas is the poinsettias tucked up front, or worse, if nothing changes from June to December, you’re missing the chance to create warmth and welcome.
And don’t stop with decorations. Think contingency plans. In too many churches, a holiday snowstorm or icy parking lot is the excuse for a miserable guest experience. If your sidewalks aren’t salted, your parking lot isn’t plowed, and no one thought about umbrellas for guests in the rain, then your “decorating” is just window dressing. True hospitality means planning for real-world conditions.
I once saw a church that stationed “shepherds” with flashlights at every entrance of their parking lot, guiding cars in the dark and helping guests find the best spaces. Members knew to park in the back so first-timers could park near the front doors. It cost the church almost nothing, but to the guests it felt like they had rolled out the red carpet. That’s what seasonal hospitality looks like.
This holiday season, decorate not just with ornaments and banners but with thoughtful preparation. Make your building say, “We’re ready for you, and we’re glad you’re here.”
4. Plan Entertainment → Create Relevant Events and Sermons
When you host at home, you don’t just invite people in and then expect them to sit quietly while you go about your normal routine. You plan something. Maybe it’s a football game on the big screen, board games for the kids, or stories around the fire. You think ahead about what will make the evening memorable.
The same principle applies to church during the holiday season. If all you’re offering is “business as usual,” don’t be surprised when your neighbors skip it. Church as usual isn’t drawing them in the other 50 weeks of the year, so why would it suddenly be attractive now?
A local church here in Missouri flipped this on its head in the best possible way. Their holiday sermon series was called Making the Best of Dysfunctional Families. They launched it with a short, tongue-in-cheek “reality show” video that had people laughing before the pastor even started. Another in church in Seattle invited kids to take part in an impromptu Christmas pageant. Shepherd-costumed teens invited children to join them up front, costumes were simple but fun – and they created a place mid-way through the pageant and invited parents to come take pictures of their costumed children. The parents left saying, “That was unforgettable … and it actually helped us talk about Jesus at home.”
That’s the difference. They weren’t watering things down or going gimmicky. They simply created content and experiences that mattered to the people who showed up. Guests found the services valuable and engaging … valuable enough to come back.
So, Pastor, here’s the challenge: what would your unchurched neighbor actually consider worth attending this holiday season? A dry theological lecture? Or a message that speaks into their family stress, financial worries, and holiday pressures while still pointing them to the hope of Christ? This season, don’t just open your doors. Offer something people truly want to step into.
5. Plan the Menu → Make Worship Guest-Friendly
Far too often, I do a consult with churches where the bulletin was so full of insider code words it might as well have been printed in Greek. The order of worship listed things like Invocation, Doxology, Hymn 342, Benediction. If you were raised in church, you knew what was coming. But if you were a first-time guest with little or no church background, you were lost before the first song even started. And guess what? They won’t come back.
At home, when you plan a holiday meal, you think carefully about the menu. You don’t just serve your personal favorites; you make sure there’s something on the table everyone can enjoy. Maybe you still slip in Aunt Martha’s cranberry relish, but you balance it with dishes that will actually be eaten by the majority of your guests.
Church is the same. The “menu” is your order of worship, your bulletin, your slides, your sermon. Ask yourself: is it guest-friendly? Does it make sense to someone who doesn’t already speak fluent church-ese? Or have you built a meal that only your insiders will recognize and appreciate?
This is the time to read over your sermon notes and ask hard questions. Am I introducing names and places in the Scripture, or assuming everyone knows them? The average young adult today doesn’t automatically know the difference between Peter and Paul, or Moses and Isaiah. They don’t know what “Testament” means, whether it’s Old or New. They’ve never heard words like eschatology or sanctification, and they aren’t impressed by your ability to cite Greek cognates.
Plan your worship menu like you were expecting first-time guests at every table. Cut the jargon. Translate the customs. Explain what’s happening as it happens. And most of all, serve up content that feeds people in a way that makes them want to come back for seconds.
6. Prep the Staff → Prep Your Congregation for Hospitality
At home, you don’t usually have to remind your family of basic etiquette when guests are coming over. On the other hand, sometimes you do. I can’t tell you how many times my wife has pulled me aside with a quiet reminder: “Remember to let other people talk … and maybe don’t launch into your ten-minute story about the time you…” Guests deserve our best behavior, not our distracted habits.
In the church, “prepping the staff” really means prepping your congregation for hospitality. Because let’s be honest: most of your people don’t instinctively know how to engage with guests. They’ll shake a hand, say “good morning,” and then retreat back to conversations with their friends. That’s not hospitality. That’s autopilot.
This is the season to train your congregation. Teach them how to have an actual conversation with a guest, one that goes beyond hello and includes genuine interest in the person standing in front of them. The Connection Conversation is a good place to start:
“Hi, I’m Bill … I don’t think we’ve met.”
“How long have you been coming here?” (YOU know they’re a first-timer, but this keeps it from getting awkward!)
“What keeps you busy during the week?”
That’s a conversation that helps ensure your guests feel both seen and welcome.
Prep your greeters to stand outside the doors, even if it’s cold or rainy, umbrellas in hand to walk people in from their cars. Show your ushers how to guide families to seats with warmth instead of just pointing to an empty row. Train your front-line people: “No guest touches a door.” In other words, someone is always opening the door and inviting them in.
Holiday guests aren’t looking for perfection. They’re looking for people who seem glad they came. When your congregation is prepped to do more than smile and nod, that’s exactly the impression they’ll leave.
7. Send Invites → Extend Real Invitations
Last year, I asked a pastor how they were getting the word out about their Christmas Eve services. With a straight face he said, “Oh, we posted it on our Facebook page.” Right. And then he wondered why hardly anyone new showed up.
Here’s the truth: the only people following your church’s Facebook page are your members, a handful of their extended family, and maybe a couple of friends who felt guilty enough to click “Like.” If that’s your whole outreach strategy, don’t be surprised when you’re preaching to the same crowd year after year.
At home, when you’re hosting, you don’t just set the table and hope someone wanders in. You send out invitations. You call, text, or email. You make sure people know when and where to show up.
Your church needs to do the same. Build an email list of your neighbors. Collect contact information from every first-time visitor who walks through the door all year long (and if you’re not doing that already, start now). Create events for your sermon series, your weekly sermons, and of course, every special holiday program you’re planning … and then actually promote them. And don’t do it alone, recruit a small social media team whose job is to Like, Comment, Share, and Tag neighbors when those event posts go live.
The bottom line is this: if you want people to come, you have to invite them. Don’t assume they’ll just find you. They won’t. (Grab a copy of 101 Things You Can Do to Help Grow Your Church for every family in your congregation … there’s 100+ things ideas they can use to help get the word out.)
Wrapping It Up Like a Present
Hospitality at home during the holidays doesn’t happen by accident. You clean, you prepare, you decorate, you plan. You do it because guests matter. And if we’ll do that much for friends and family in our living rooms, shouldn’t we do at least that much for the people God is sending through the doors of our churches?
The holiday season, from Halloween straight through New Year’s, is one of the greatest windows you’ll ever have to welcome your neighbors. Some of them may only give you this one shot. Make it count.
I’ll never forget visiting a church one Christmas Eve where the details spoke volumes. As we pulled into the lot, parking lot attendants with orange flashlights guided us to a guest spot near the door. Inside, carolers in Victorian dress sang while elf-hatted greeters handed out cider and helped kids make ornaments. Later that night, when we got home, my kids opened the door to find a wrapped box on the porch: homemade bread, local honey, a Christmas CD, and a hand-signed card from the pastor. They were giggling with delight while we spotted two Magi in costumes strolling down the driveway. Do you think we remembered that church? Do you think we came back? Absolutely.
That’s the power of hospitality done well. It turns a visit into a memory. And memories bring people back.
So, Pastor, here’s your next step: download the Holiday Hospitality Short List. It’s a simple, practical checklist of the top hospitality practices you can put in place this season. Use it with your staff. Share it with your leaders. Get your congregation ready.
Because when guests show up at your church this holiday season, they deserve more than business as usual. They deserve your best.
