Regardless if you call it a lobby or “narthex,” your church probably has one. It’s the place where every ministry and event known to man competes for the attention of your attenders through signage.
My take on lobby signage
Too much of a good thing…
I think churches rely too much on promoting and less on invest and invite. The end result is lots of noise in our lobbies because every ministry is promoting — No one sees anything. You can’t get louder, but if you use it sparingly people will notice. I think it’s time we all strip back the promotional, get back to relationships, and leverage word-of-mouth.
Word-of-mouth always scores #1 on multiple surveys asking “How did you first hear about our church?”
One solution
I understand signage is inevitable.
Take a look at the image attached to this post. One of our campuses at The Chapel recently changed up the way they promote ministries in the lobby. Instead of having so many floor banners, posters, etc., they purchased several big poster frames. They’re permanent fixtures on the wall much like you find at the movies. There are only limited spots for the big events and folks know where to always look — sort of the way we do it online with the banner rotation.
What do you do?
What’s your take or philosophy on lobby signage? What have you found works best at your church? Share or post your images in the comments.
We currently compete for attention. But we also have a silent PowerPoint scrolling with announcements in our “fellowship center” space. I like your idea of the picture frames!
Digital is where we’d like to go. It will be a while before that happens.
We end up having stacks of bad designed information fliers and postcards on our welcome desk. That is what I’d like to cut down on.
We do not allow promo items in our narthex… or hallways/walls… but instead we have a full room available before and after services called the “connection center” where people can talk to a live person about events and receive appropriate promo items…. it’s a tricky battle - cause we want people who need the info to get it but we also don’t want to overwhelm those who don’t.
We push to go digital but there are many in our church that have yet to get online and with those who are online we don’t want our website to become a bulletin board (that’s what it used to be!)! We try to keep our website clean so it’s clear and appropriate for those who have yet to visit our church.
Ah the beauty of church communications… : ) I’ve seen the lobby at the chapel and I think it looks great - tastefully done and well managed.
We have a welcome/info kiosk with large displays with a looping slideshow. There are also people manning the kiosk ready with additional information, sign up forms and whatever else people need to know about.
Now, if we could just eliminate the Papyrus font from all computers…church signage might have a fighting chance : )
AMEN to the papyrus, but let’s add comic sans to the banned font list while we’re at it.