But it’s clear, they’ve still got that gardener’s eye for beauty and a desire to use their skills to let visitors to Hunter Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Ky., know they are welcome.

Each week the flowers featured during Sunday service are transformed into a dozen or more bouquets. Delivered by volunteers within 24 hours, they are sent to both church members and new visitors.

"It shows that we are paying attention that they were there," said the Rev. Rene Whitaker, who just recently came to Hunter Presbyterian. "I’ve visited a lot of churches where nobody spoke to me." After Whitaker’s first official service at the church, the Flower Guild sent her husband flowers. That, she said, was a welcome first.

"These flowers heard the hymns that were sung, the prayers offered and the sermon preached," reads a card included with each arrangement. "Now, with their silent message, they come to you with our love and good wishes."

"That just says it all," said Mary Jane Roser, who, along with the other women, has been working on the Flower Guild for about 15 years.

Churches have always tried to be welcoming places, but the steps they take to let visitors know they care are becoming increasingly creative.

What happens during the first visit is critically important, said Mark Waltz, pastor of connections at Granger Community Church in Granger, Ind. He writes in his book "First Impressions: Creating Wow Experiences in Your Church" that visitors are likely to return if greeters and others demonstrate authentic interest in them. If not, the visitors don’t return.

Visitors to Lexington’s Good Shepherd Episcopal Church who fill out visitor cards get what Joyce Roth, who organizes the greeters, calls "the royal treatment."

After Sunday school classes are over, Roth and sometimes other volunteers deliver a jar of chocolate sauce with a card that reads "I hope this tops off your Sunday" and encourages the visitor to make a return visit.

"A lot of people are a little bit ambivalent about going into a church," she said. "They aren’t sure they’ve picked the right place or how to go about it," she said.

Although she can’t say the sugary treat is responsible, Roth said people do notice when a congregation makes an extra effort to connect.

"We’ve been inundated with new people. We just have people swarming in the doors. There are some 85 new people on the rolls," she said.

Clair Budd, a professor at Asbury College in Wilmore, Ky., said at his church visitors are given a mug with the church logo filled with Hershey kisses.

Small gestures like that just let people know that they’re welcome. While handshakes and friendly hellos are great for first-time visitors, a formalized program helps make sure no one is overlooked. And, he said, at the same time it can push church members outside of their comfort zones and help them reach out to people because they have a specific task.

The outreach efforts are just a small, but important, part of what makes a newcomer feel welcome, he said. Everything from the smell of incense to the volume of a speaker’s voice can touch something in a visitor.

In the church basement at Hunter Presbyterian, the women struggled a little bit to stretch their $50 worth of flowers into 14 bouquets.

"We don’t want to send out something skimpy," Lucy Crabb said.

That wouldn’t be the right message.