A new kid decides a lot in the first five minutes. So we asked leaders to describe their room on a typical week, honestly. They were.
describe their room as fun and welcoming for everyone, even brand-new kids.
The most common single answer, but not a majority.
The rest of the answers are the interesting ones. Warm but a little cliquey. Friendly, but mostly geared toward kids who already get it. Together, those two describe a room that works well for the kids who are already there.
cliquey, or geared to kids who already get it
including brand-new kids and teenagers
Most rooms are warm. Fewer are warm to someone they've never met.
Tap through the sizes. The share describing a room that's welcoming for everyone climbs with church size. More volunteers, more space, and more people whose whole job is the first five minutes all help.
We expected leaders who regularly adjust their physical space to report a more welcoming room. They don't, really. Among those who evaluate their space monthly or quarterly, called it welcoming for everyone. Among those who rarely or never do, .
Welcome seems to live in people more than in furniture: who says hello, who explains what's happening, who notices the kid standing by the door.
Pick any, so answers total more than 100%.
Humor and icebreakers are nearly universal. Training volunteers to be inclusive and trauma-informed is the least common practice on the list, at . It's also the one most directly about the people in the room.
Asked for their single biggest environment struggle, leaders split almost evenly between building constraints, not enough volunteers to keep a consistent vibe, and not enough time to plan.
These answers come from the people who run the room, not from the kids walking into it. That cuts both ways: leaders may be generous about their own space, or harder on it than a visitor would be. The candor of the “cliquey” answers suggests the second is at least as likely.
Based on responses to How would you describe the atmosphere of your ministry environment on a typical week? “Built for insiders” combines “Warm but a little cliquey” and “Friendly but mostly geared toward kids who already get it.”
Comparisons are simple cross-tabulations with no controls. Every figure is generated from the response data rather than typed by hand. Explore every environments question →