NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) — Got too many people visiting your church? Need to do some things to discourage them from coming back a second time? Here are a list of ways to make guests feel unwelcome should they show up at your church or class.

• Make parking for first-time guests inconvenient. This is probably your best first line of defense against visitors, particularly first-time guests. Welcoming churches have parking spaces close to the main entrance of the building marked clearly “For First-Time Guests.” Some even have a special team of volunteers whose job is to warmly greet first-time guests and give them immediate directions, perhaps even providing a map and marking the parking area on it.

• Get grouchy greeters. A friendly smile and a warm handshake at the door goes a long way to make guests feel welcome. You could just get rid of greeters altogether of course, it is actually more effective to have grouchy greeters. Train them to carry on conversations with other greeters and sort of just grunt at people they don’t recognize.

• Forego a welcome center. Even a clearly marked table or desk exclusively for guest information can make a really big positive impression. Especially if there is clear information about classes.

• Treat guests like a doctor’s office treats new patients. Here’s a tricky one. Go ahead and staff a welcome desk, but make sure the experience is as close to that of a new patient as possible. Ignore the guest for a few minutes. Act like the guest has been there before and knows what to do. And best of all, hand them a clipboard and demand they fill out some forms.

• Don’t escort guests to their classrooms. Really welcoming churches don’t send people to their classrooms. They escort them. Starting with the youngest child (if there are children), a family is dropped off one-by-one at their classes, with the last stop being the adult class.

• Make finding a seat really hard. All members can participate in this one. Just “save” all the seats at the back of the room or on the aisles. This works in the worship center and in the student or adult classroom. If you want to do more, make sure the chairs face the door, so everyone can stare at a newcomer as soon as they reach they door.

• Have guests stand up while everyone else sits, or sit while everyone else stands. I am not sure which of these works better to run people off. I almost think the practice of having guests remain seated while everyone around them stands is better if you want to make guests feel unwelcome. It is sort of like being a little baby in a crib surrounded by doting relatives.

• Randomly call on people to read or pray. You don’t even need to pick on guests. Just call on random members to pray or read Scripture. That will serve to create anxiety in your guests that they may be next. Wise teachers always ask members ahead of time if they will read from the Bible, perhaps handing them the “address” of the verses on an index card so the member can mark his Bible and familiarize himself with the passage. Likewise, they ask a member before class if she would be willing to lead in prayer

• Don’t wear name tags. There is nothing that makes a guest feel more welcome than a room full of people wearing name tags. Absolutely nothing. Wearing a name tag is an act of faith. It says, “I’m expecting God to send someone to our class today who doesn’t yet know us.” The stick-on kind works fine.

I remember how welcome I felt the first time I visited Hope Fellowship Church in Cambridge, Mass. As soon as I walked into the tiny foyer, some young people – probably students at nearby Harvard or MIT – invited me to stick on a name tag. They were all wearing them, too. Everyone was calling me by name, and I them.

At a new church meeting in a middle school in Wake Forest, N.C., everyone wore name tags, and many stopped dead in their tracks to greet me. I discovered the next day that I had been handed a name tag with a subtle red border. Members knew to wear a name tag with a green border. Regular attenders wore yellow. It was like a conspiracy – a whole church full of greeters anticipating newcomers each week.