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visitor followup

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6 Ways to Follow Up on First Time Church Visitors

If your church visitors do not return and make friends with people in your congregation, your church

  • will not grow
  • will not help new believers who responded to an altar call invitation to grow as a disciple
  • will not help new movers into your community get involved in your church with their treasures and talents
  • will not help evangelism contacts via your outreaches continue to seek for Christ.

While it is a good practice to train your church members to increase the number of invitations to church, it is also a good practice to find ways to be intentional your  follow up on your first time church visitor.

Here are six ways to be intentional in helping your church visitor to connect.

[Read more…] about 6 Ways to Follow Up on First Time Church Visitors

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8 Church Connection Card Templates

Churches that have a clear follow up plan for first time church visitors know that their follow up all starts with inviting your first time guests to fill out a church connection card.

Without the information on that card, churches will struggle to inviting that anonymous church visitor to take next steps.

[Read more…] about 8 Church Connection Card Templates

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Do you want to know why your church visitor didn’t return?

Don’t you wish that you could sometimes learn why a church visitor would choose not to come back after their first visit?

There is one way you might learn: ask.

But don’t start thinking you need to make a cold call and talk with a stranger who will likely be polite to your face. [Read more…] about Do you want to know why your church visitor didn’t return?

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Video: What if a church visitor keeps coming back?

Our family experienced a temporary life transition that involved us moving to another state in the US for a period of four months.

We left our work, our church that we are planting, our friends and support networks.

FamilySummer2012

During this temporary time, we chose a local church in the community we lived in.

We chose to not shop for a church.

This put us in a real life experience of being the first time visitor in a church.

And the second time visitor, and so on.

It also allowed us to experience the challenges of getting connected to a local church.

Too busy to make friends on Sunday

The small window of time between services and the start of Sunday school was too busy.

We had to

  • navigate their large building to find our kids after the service,
  • get some coffee in the fellowship hall, and
  • press through the tight crowd that forms in the hallways between the services.

After three visits, we began to wonder, how do we go about making new friends?

Listen in on my church visit

I wrote about our experience for the January 2013 issue of Net Results Magazine.  In this video, I’m interviewed by the editors, Bill Tenny-Brittian, and his wife Kris, for an episode of Church Talk.

Listen in:

What next?

After a few weeks, the “wow” factor of awesome church hospitality has faded.

The visitor’s question now becomes one of the following:

  • Can I make new friends here?
  • Can I make a difference in the world here?
  • Can Jesus meet me?
  • Can I give financially to support this church’s mission?

On the assumption that you have a church visitor or new family making the effort to come back for a few weeks, my experience raises the question:

How can a church guide a visitor to an easy and low commitment next step?

This is the central question of any visitor connection process.

We must be intentional in helping new comers find their way into our church family and make easy pathways for that to occur.

Programmatic expressions might differ, but the question remains the same:

Please share:

In the comment field below, would you contribute your answer?

What is a simple and low commitment next step that a repeat church visitor can take to build new relationships?

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4 Keys to Keep More of Your Church Visitors

George Bullard headshotToday’s guest article comes via George Bullard’s website at Bullard Journal.  Below are excerpts from the article called “Why do People Leave Churches.”

George Bullard of The Columbia Partnership, a Columbia, S.C.-based organization that helps churches pursue and sustain vital ministry, said churches face an “assimilation challenge” in the first year after new people begin attending to influence whether they become part of a community or slip through the back door.

Towards the end of article, George gives churches 4 Steps to Keeping your visitors: [Read more…] about 4 Keys to Keep More of Your Church Visitors

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