Dr. Buddy Bell, founder of Ministry of Helps International, combines humor with informative teaching and practical tips to help ushers realize the importance of serving people with excellence in the local church.

Dr. Buddy Bell, Ministry of Helps specialist, gives church greeters humor and instruction on how to carry out one of the most important areas in church ministry ndash; the first impression of greeting.

C.1 ST. AID B & T. 03-18-2008. $7.99.

When is the best time to seat a latecomer? How can you be friendly to visitors without overwhelming them? What should you do if someone faints during the worship service? It's natural to have these questions as an usher or greeter. You can find the answer to these questions and more in Welcome to Our Church. This book will help ushers and greeters learn how to make visitors and members feel welcome, handle large crowds of people and noisy children, prepare for emergencies and problem situations, and usher special services like weddings and funerals.

For:•Individual use•Group trainingGreeters are the welcoming arms that people long to find in a church. This practical guidebook will help you reach out to people who need to experience the warmth of belonging to a church family.Serving as a Church Greeter sheds light on•The Ministry of Church Greeters•The Need for Warmhearted Greeters•Developing a User-Friendly Foyer•A Better Way of Doing Things•The Parking Lot MinistryZondervan Practical Ministry Guides provide you with simple, practical insights for serving in today’s churches. Written by experienced pastors and church workers, these easy-to-read, to-the-point booklets address the fundamentals of different ministries as practiced effectively in real life. You’ll find biblical insight and wise, field-tested advice you can apply today, as well as discussion questions to help you think through and integrate what you read.

These pages are written to you, a church usher, as though we were talking face-to-face. The ideas in this book have been shared with me through the years by ushers like you. Some ideas will be familiar; a few will be new; but all will need to be translated into the way you do things in your church.

From the perspective of a veteran pastor and communicator, Dr. Leslie Parrott describes the function of the usher and provides practical and Scriptural guidelines on how this vital role in the church may be carried out with grace and effciency.

An update to 2005’s The Usher’s Book: Creating a Welcoming and Safe Environment for Worship, The Greeter and Usher Handbook provides a guide to the responsibilities of those who are generally the first faces visitors encounter in church: the usher and the greeter. Intended for training use by church staff or volunteers, the text covers responsibilities related to all aspects of creating a welcoming atmosphere for visitors and new members.

I started writing this book in 1994. That was the year the LORD graciously commissioned me to raise for Him Quality leaders. I started with Ministers' and Pastors' workshop. Training for ushers was the second assignment I handled among the three fold mandates the LORD gave me in 1994. But, no book was written by me back then, neither did I come across any specialized book on Ushers, Greeters and Protocols in one volume, 20 years ago. I have been privileged to conduct Training courses across the length and breadth of Nigeria on Ushering ministry for 20 years. I have interacted with over 400 churches from over 280 denominations in conferences and seminars but I never wrote a book on this topic. Our outfit, Christian Leadership Skills, have been involved in mass training for ushers in churches that counted 120,000 on Sundays with Ushers' workforce of about 4,000. I have written 36 books todate, but none on Ushers, Protocol and Greeters until now. A particular mega church invited us to deliver training for ushers and crowd controllers twice within three months in their headquarters church. Their invitation came a bit late I could not be there physically. I didn't have a book on Ushers or crowd control. Only a manual. Churches get confused on the role of ushers as different from protocol officers. I have witnessed ushers and protocols fight for territories in churches. A particular church head usher insists that he must stay side by side with the protocol officer by the altar, very close to the anointed. There was no book to show where each belong. A particular ministry scrapped the word "Ushers" from the list of ministries. The General Overseer banned the entire ushers from officiating in the length and breadth of the church. His reason? Brethren have the Holy Spirit to direct them. No need for Ushers and the church went on "smoothly thereafter". I had no book to give to the man of God. No book I could give, until 20 years later! Who are Ushers? Who are Protocol officers? Who are Greeters? Who are Traffic Controllers? I didn't write any book to explain. I only explain during workshop session. Now the explanation has become handy.

Momentary Ministers . . . Most people think it takes a long time--years, months or even days to accomplish something profound, something great for God. The truth of the matter is that church greeters have this opportunity every time someone walks through the doors of their church. Greeters have the awesome ability and opportunity to be an...