Engaging First Time Guests So They’ll Want to Come Back: Part One
Do you have an assimilation strategy in place in your church?
I know the word “assimilation” doesn’t sound very nice. Perhaps it brings memories of that great cube spaceship called the Borg, whose token phrase “you will be assimilated” often aggravated the Enterprise on Startrek. Yes, I am a recovering Startrek junkie.
But the basic concept behind an assimilation process is that of offering your guests biblical hospitality. It’s introducing them to a purposeful process that engages them and encourages them to come back.
Full Disclosure: What i’m going to present is an assimilation process based upon the book Fusion, by Nelson Searcy. Well, I’m going to present how we’ve implemented it, anyway, and share lessons we’ve learned a long the way.
So does a process like this actually work? Yes. The first year that we implemented this in our church we grew by 171%! I know that sounds like a huge number. But it’s the growth rate from 7 to 19 baptisms. So yes, this really does work.
So I’d like to begin by sharing a graph by Dr. Charles Arn, that I first heard about through Pastor Tim Madding.
This is the percentage of guests that become active in a church within a year. So in a non-growing church, someone that comes for the first time is 9% likely to still be in the church one year later. If they come back a second time, though, the number almost doubles. If they come back a third time, the likelihood triples. In a growing church, the numbers follow the same principle, but it happens in a more consistent fashion. If someone comes once to a growing church, they are 21% likely to still be there a year later. If they come three times, it’s almost completely in the bag.
So what can we learn from that graph?
I think it’s clear that growing churches do something differently to encourage their guests to come back a second time. And if they come back a second time, they do everything they can to get them to come back a third time.
That’s it for now. More in the next days. But I want you to chew on those facts for a few moments. If you don’t have something in place, why not? What are you waiting for? Souls are hanging in the balance, and they’re slipping right through your fingers if you don’t have a dedicated and purposeful assimilation strategy in place.
How many first-time guests do you think you get within a given year? How many of those actually ever come back? Please share.
[image by slimmer jimmer]
Related posts:
We do have an Assimilation system in place but we are also growing into it since we are a new church. Part of our problem is that we do not yet have a leader in this area and so those of us who are leading and developing other areas have also been doing Assimilation. But we are pretty consistent with giving 1st time guests a gift bag at church, sending an email within 48 hours & mailing a thank-you note with a $5 gift card to Bruster's Ice Cream… then trying to also send another email to 2nd timers and talking with people to get them involved. We do need a more clearly defined system and to engage the right people to run it…. then we'll be getting our money's worth out of our Connection Power subscription (which we are not currently using at its' capacity). Rodlie… would love to chat with you some time about this specific topic!
Well, it sounds like your system is pretty solid there. Congrats. I think you're ahead of 98% of churches out there that have nothing. Yeah, i'd love to chat with you too. Maybe on monday or tuesday we can talk some in the morning. I'll give you a shoutout when I check my schedule.
I think most churches don't realize that there's so much low hanging fruit (the kind we SHOULD be taking and eating!) in this area (i.e. see some of the list at http://bit.ly/1-time-visitors ). But the biggest take away I've learned from being in churches that of both flavors is that the key is to be strategic about it and really map out the entire process. This also allows you to see where people are dropping off that you can attend to easily, etc.
Good point. I read your post, by the way. Good stuff. We're using the assimilation system based upon the Nelson Searcy book Fusion. At the moment it seems to be working quite well and people are responding. What have you noticed in other systems that you'd recommend?
I've been in different churches that have created their own assimilation strategy. The latest, Liquid Church, takes it quite seriously and has a formal process, structure and team to attend to this critical part of "doing church". The other big lesson is that this is also a culture thing. The church needs to be outward facing in order for any of this "theory" to work. It all starts with saying "Hello!" or "Good morning!" to each and every person you cross in the hall, foyer or parking lot that you don't personally know. Thanks for the comments Rodlie!