If you look over things at your church and see several areas where quality is necessary, but can only overhaul one at a time, THINK SMALL! By this I mean the nursery and children's church. It may well be that the most important staff position in your church is in the area of children's ministry. In fact, I would strongly consider making it the first hire of a church with a Senior Pastor and secretary, but no other pastoral staff. And certainly the very next hire of any church that does not have a full time Children's Pastor.
Most parents will not give you a second chance to make a good first impression where their children are concerned. Even if you are meeting in temporary locations, where you have to set up and tear down everything every week, parents are going to expect to see quality if they are going to leave their kids with what amounts to a perfect stranger. When they see a commitment on the church's part to provide for their kids, they will then be more open to attending the church.
When considering the ministries of your church, once again THINK SMALL! This time I mean small groups. And do not just narrowly define small groups to only one or two types of meetings. The fact is that not all of your people will join home Bible studies or Sunday School classes, even those involved in ministry. There are only so many hours in a week. So expand your idea of what a small group is.
Any time a few people in your church gather together regularly, consider that a small group. If your worship team or choir practices weekly, consider it a small group. If you have a staff that meets bi-weekly, consider it a small group. If you have volunteers who fold your bulletins and produce mailings, consider them a small group. Even adult Sunday School classes can, and should, be thought of as a small group.
Speak to the leader about doing a bit of ministry at each such meeting. Have them do the things that generally describe small groups. Things like praying for each other, talking and listening to each other. Be sure the focus isn't so solely on the task at hand that ministry is neglected. Encourage each leader to care for the group members, such as visiting when one is sick or in the hospital, sending cards or letters or emails, calling when one isn't in church on a given Sunday.
Going back to the article on "Atmosphere", church should be a seven-day-a-week proposition. You want to be able to get people into your building, or onto your property, as much and as often as possible. Some type of snack bar creates a good place to relax and gather, and make new friends, throughout the week. I would not try to operate a large-scale bookstore, but having an area where your logo items, along with service CD's and DVD's are available is a good idea. It even works to be self-serve. After all, if you can't trust church people, who can you trust?
If your property allows for some outdoor recreation area, develop it. You might be able to operate a fitness-walking club or something. If you have a gym, be sure your Youth Pastor is taking full advantage of it throughout the week after school.
Contact local social clubs and educational groups about using your facility. Some ideas that jump to the fore would be: Red hat Society, Creative memories, Kinder Music, Kinder Art, homeschool associations, etc.
All of this is about doing things differently. Methods change. Methods should change. But the message never should. One of those areas where change is good is the offering. Too many times the offering is placed in the middle of the service and, unfortunately, brings the entire service to a halt. The first problem is we fell like we have to apologize for taking an offering. That should never be the case. It is a fact of life in a capitalist society that money is necessary. Try placing the offering at the end. Have you choir or worship team do some up-tempo "out the door" number while the ushers serve the people. This way, if you use a communication or connect card as mentioned elsewhere, folks have a chance to fill it out, respond to announcements, sign up for events, or indicate decisions and prayer requests.
As is the case most of the time, everything hinges on leadership. Training is a real key . It has been said, "People will not do what you expect, but what you inspect", and the same will be true in the church. While ultimate responsibility rests with the Senior Pastor, he or she should not try to do all the ministry alone. Give things away, but do so with clear, written, guidelines and expectations. Then inspect the product periodically.
Think back to the "whole church is the welcome team" idea. It is imperative that you spend time with key people prior to instituting such a thing and instruct them on what that means. If not, people, being people, will naturally look for and greet those they know the most. And id not reminded from time-to-time, they will revert to doing so even after being trained to do otherwise. You will need to be specific. You will need to tell them to look for those they don't know. You will need to tell them to, after the service, spend the first three minutes talking to guests before they find their friends or family to make dinner plans.
But training doesn't end there. Create a process where people can systematically learn more about the church and what is expected of them as members. Hold a series of classes where this information is presented. One class to introduce the church and the idea of membership. Another for spiritual growth and maturity. Yet another for discovering and devolving spiritual gifts. A fourth for developing a testimony and participating in missions and ministry. Finish the series by emphasizing the need for personal worship and holiness.
I'll finish this section by returning to small groups. If you do small groups or adult Sunday School, be sure to do a campaign or two each year that is "sermon-aligned". For 6-8 weeks line up your weekend sermons with a specific small group campaign. This gets everybody on the same page. Many publishers and large churches produce such material.