Entering Willow

Last year Willow had a great session called "From Street to Seat" which was all about producing a theme at your church that impacts people from the street all the way to their seats.

Willow did a great job at the arts conference with this concept this year. They had brought in street performers from Chicago, who were performing outside as you were walking in from your car and inside in the lobby as you were browsing and getting ready for the conference.

The guys above were bringing back motown. Three part harmony and a guitar. Priceless. Then as soon as you get through the door there's a guy playing the blues on a sax.

This was a touch of class that made the week even more memorable from the very beginning. This of course is in addition to the greeters that help you every step of the way to make sure you know where you're going and what you need to do to get started. Without these staff, I believe things would not be so stress-free as we began the conference. They are a great model of the importance of greeting at a church service. I think we were greeted by at least 10 people before we finally made it to our seats.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. We had three people with us that had never been to Willow before. I think they were all impressed right off the bat before anything even got started.

The registration process was incredibly smooth, too. To think how quickly they processed the thousands of people that were attending this conference, all arriving at the same time. I can't help but contrast them to the hotel where they were overburdened by three people who wanted to check in at the same time.

Amazingly, there were no computers involved in the registration process at Willow. That is, at least not when you're picking up your materials. I think if it were at our place we would have bent over backwards to get a computer involved. It has to be faster, right?

That's what the hotel thought.

When we got to the table to get our registration materials, there was NO line. We walked right up to the table, got our stuff in a matter of seconds, and we were on our way.

Way to go Willow.