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Many churches choose to use a Church Welcome packet as a way of quickly communicating news and programming information to first time church visitors.

The First Time Visitor packet can be used to share the breadth of your church’s ministry programming, as well as include perhaps a little thank you gift.

Here are 3 steps on how to make Church Visitor Welcome Packets.

1.  Choose the Church Visitor Folder

There are plenty of folder types to choose from.  The easiest form is to use a pocket folder such as the one pictured.

Many churches will choose to have them professionally printed with the church logo and contact information on it.

Pick a color that goes well with your marketing design.

You might want to make sure the folders are sturdy in construction so they will not dissolve in the rain, or feel cheap.

The pockets makes it easy to put your contents in it.

Personally, I like the ones with the business card cut out, such as the one pictured.

Instead of the pastor’s business card (which can be in a folder or attached to the visitor letter), stick in Business Cards that Church members can give away.

You could also put a refrigerator magnet with the church’s contact information on it, or maybe a phone number hot-line for prayer.

2.  Assemble or Prepare the Church Visitor Packet

The actual steps on how to create a Church Visitor packet are easy.   Gather your content and put it in.

Here are a few ideas of what to put in the welcome packet for visitors.  These are things that I have seen and appreciated.

You know your local ministry context so use what is appropriate.  All of these may not be useful.

1. Letter of Greeting from the Pastor with an invitation to return the following week.
2. A summary of the church’s vision and dream.
3. Audio recording from the Pastor — a popular sermon, or a more in depth greeting.
4. General information brochure on the church’s ministries.
5. A brief history of the church, or the denomination if that is deemed important.
6. Announcement flyers of public events such as fall festivals, Christmas Programming.  (Not notes from your Evangelism Committee meetings).
7. Information on the membership process of your church.
8. A coupon to turn in at the welcome center on next visit for a free token of appreciation like a book or mug or gas card.
9. Marketing piece for current sermon series.
10. Information on how to get sermon series via podcast or website.
11. Invitation to an on-line follow up Survey for First Time Visitors about their experience of your church’s hospitality.
12. A brochure that explains the gospel simply and clearly and points visitors to a page on your website that shares more information.
13. For more ideas see: 10 Church Visitor Gift Ideas

The quality of whatever goes in this packet is part of the first impressions that you will make on a church visitor.  Make sure your photocopies are clean, crisp, on decent weight paper (such as 24lb).  A fourth generation photocopy of a dot matrix letter in courier font is just not acceptable. 

A word about audio recordings in Visitor Packets

We recently received a cassette tape copy of the sermon preached that day.  We then discovered that we don’t have a cassette player any more.

Not in the car.

Not in our house.

We haven’t used a cassette is several years and forgot that we didn’t own a player.  All our stereo systems have gone to CD or MP3.

Consider a offering a choice: cassette, CD, DVD, or a link to a free MP3 download on the church’s website.

3. Distribute the Welcome Folders to Visitors

During our visits in different churches, these visitor packets have come to us in a variety of ways:

• We have found them ourselves.
• The members that have invited us will bring us one.
• Greeters that recognize us as visitors give them to us.
• Told to get one from the Welcome Center on the way out.
• When prompted, we raised our hands and ushers gave one to us.

Update:  This post has gotten a lot of attention thanks to people posting it to

• Their Facebook profile,
• bookmarking it in Delicious,
• Twitter
• and using the tell a friend button,
• And linking to this from their own blog

to cast this out to a lot of their social networks.  I want to say thank you for doing this.

For those of you coming here for the first time, thank you.

Let me ask you this?

If you use visitor packets, would you share with us in the comments put in your welcome folder?  How do you distribute the church welcome packet?

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