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Top Mistakes When Dealing With First Time Guests

August 24, 2009 in assimilation with 0 Comments

I just finished a mini-series dealing with how we interact with first-time guests. Here’s the first, second, and third part of the series.

There were a few extra thoughts regarding guests, though, that I didn’t include earlier, but that are quite important. Most of these might seem quite basic to most, but I wanted to offer them up just in case.
So here are the top mistakes I think most churches make when dealing with first time guests.
1. Calling them visitors
A visitor is someone that you were not expecting. Someone that you expect to stay just a little while and then go home. What’s a better word to use? Guests. A guest is someone that you were expecting and are happy to see. You clean up the house when you’re expecting a guest. You light the candles and vacuum well. You’re happy to see them.
And yet in how many churches do we often hear from the front, “I just want to welcome all the visitors for coming this morning. We’re so glad that you’re hear.” I cringe every time I hear it. Sometimes people still say it in my churches.
This is a corporate culture issue that must be addressed from the top. To me those are four letter words and I make sure to address it whenever I hear it. And you must be foremost in addressing every person that comes as a guest yourself. If you don’t use the lingo no one else will.
2. Asking the guests to stand or raise their hands
A first time guest that comes to your church is probably slightly on the edge. Especially if you belong to a different denomination than they do. They have no idea what you’re about, and aren’t quite sure if you guys dance around with snakes and maracas or anything else. So the last thing that a first time guest wants to do is to identify themselves. They don’t want to be highlighted. I’ve found that the only people that like to be highlighted from the front are long time Christians and parents.
You want to welcome people and make them feel comfortable. Doing the other stuff doesn’t normally work towards that.
3. Having a welcome/guest book for people to sign when they come in
The only place where I’m made to sign something when I come in are funerals and weddings. Think about it. Hopefully your place is not as somber as a funeral. And you’re probably not trying to make a theological statement about how we’re being married to Christ or something. So just don’t do it. Again, you’re putting them on the spot, and they have no idea what you’re going to do with that information. If I come to your church, I don’t want to be ushered over to where the guest book is to sign my life away. I don’t know what you’ll do with that information.
4. Passing the welcome book down the pew
The only thing worse then ushering someone to sign in, is passing it down the pews for someone to sign in. This one is like an urban legend to me. I’ve heard about, but have never quite seen it. It must be completely weird, though. Ughhh.
5. Using printed name tags for members and written ones for guests
I know it’s easier for you to identify who the guests are that way, but you may as well put a big bulls-eye on them. I’ve been on the receiving side of that and it doesn’t feel good. Just give me a big marker and I’ll write it on my own forehead.
Either use some kind of name tags for everyone or don’t use any at all. We were using hand-written name tags every week for everyone, but we started to tire of that. Now we’re not using anything in that arena.
6. Not introducing yourself as the pastor
I remember visiting a church one time. They did the first song, and then the pastor stepped up to the front and just started talking and giving announcements. I happened to know he was the pastor already, but it gave off a very uncomfortable and club-like vibe. We all know each other. If you don’t know what’s going on too bad for you.
If you as the pastor do the welcome in the church, you should introduce yourself as the pastor. Here’s what I say, “Good morning and welcome to the Carrollwood Seventh-day Adventist Church. We’re so glad that you’re here this morning. My name is Rodlie Ortiz, and I’m the pastor here….” People want to know who the leader is. When you’re in the hospital and different people are coming in, you want to know who the doctor is. Same thing with churches.
If you have someone else do the welcome in your church, they should introduce themselves. For example, “Good morning and welcome to…..my name is John and I’m one of the ministry leaders here at….we’re so glad that you’re here.”
So what’s the best thing to use to get the information you need?
You’ve got to use some kind of response card that you encourage people to fill out. In this post I include an example of the response card we use. By doing that, you’re putting the power in their hands. We’d love for you to fill it out, and we’d love to be able to connect with you, but we’re not forcing you. It’s up to you. I give the details in the series linked above.
So those are just some of the main mistakes I often see churches using in regard to guests.
What other mistakes can you think of? Let’s learn together.

[image by jeannatheodd's]

Engaging First Time Guests So They’ll Want to Come Back: Part Three

August 21, 2009 in assimilation with 0 Comments

*Just in case, here’s the first, second, and last part of the series.

So what happens after people leave your church? Do they get any response from the church? What happens to information they requested or a decision they made? What is the followup process that your church has in place?
Here’s what we’re doing.
The first thing we do is send an email by monday morning. That email has three key features. It thanks them for coming. We address any specific request they made, and we ask them to fill out a survey of their experience.
Later in the week they receive a gas card with a hand written thank you card.
This is all textbook stuff straight out of the book Fusion by Nelson Searcy. He includes much more info, though, and all the stock emails included. So make sure to get the book.
The big lesson is being ruthlessly intentional about following up with every single response that people make. When I first implemented this assimilation process I handed it off to my secretary. No longer. As I thought about it, I couldn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be doing at least part of it. So I will physically hold the response cards in my hands and pray over them. If I had a specific conversation with a guest I’ll make reference to it in the email. Is there anything more important I could be doing on a monday morning? I don’t think so.
So that’s what I take care of. I send out the first and second time emails. Our secretary sends out the hand written notes with the gift.
My process is simple. I wrote out a stock first and second time guest email response. I then wrote out custom responses for every option someone could check off. I then copy and paste them into the email as needed, and send it off. Simple.
For example, when someone checks off that they want to be a follower of Jesus Christ, and they’re first-time guests, we send out the stock first-time guest email, along with a link to the video below.
So that’s what we do. First-time guests get a certain email with a gift later in the week, and second-time guests get something similar, but with different stuff and info.
And third time guests? Well, by that point I do my best to give them a personal phone call if I haven’t already spoken to them. Originally, I tried to schedule a personal visit, but I found that I wasn’t getting too much reception with that from guests. I think it seemed a little too much. Older people dig it, younger evidently do not because I wasn’t able to connect on even one home visit. But that’s ok. You have to do what works, right? So do what works for your area and demographic.
Finally, this begs the topic of having some kind of database to store all the information you’re receiving from your guests. You must use something! Here’s a post I wrote about a web-based church database that we’re using, which I recommend.
So take a moment to think about what your church does when someone fills out a response card. Does it go to some stack somewhere and collect dust? Or do you have an intentional process for following up with every single decision that someone might make?
If you don’t have everything mapped out, it’s time to jump in. Invest a few hours and sit down and write out specific responses for every request possible. Why don’t you get started right now, in fact, and get it done?
So let’s learn together. What are you using in your church? What do you do with first time guests after they leave your church? Please share.

[image by -Teddy]

Engaging First Time Guests So They’ll Want to Come Back: Part Two

August 18, 2009 in assimilation with 4 Comments

*Just in case, here’s the first, and third part of the series.

So hopefully by now you’ve realized your need to have some kind of system in place to follow up with first-time guests. Most people probably have well over a hundred first-time guests in the course of a year. So how would your church be different if you were able to get some of them to come back and become part of your church?
Think about it.
Today I’d like to introduce the most important part of this assimilation process: a response card. We call ours a connection card. Most churches have a response card of some type, but most don’t use it effectively. Let’s look at a picture of one and then add a few comments.
I know it’s not the most impressive thing you’ve ever seen, but I think there are a few strategic elements. Notice the first three lines. On most response cards we ask for information that people don’t care to give and that takes the longest time to write. Here people can put their name, email address, and then we ask them to check off if they’re a first or second time guest, regular attender, or member. This is the most important information. Many don’t like sharing their address, but won’t mind sharing their email, as long you promise to not do anything weird with it or sign them up for something. Next is the address line and best contact phone number. Finally, on the bottom, is the line where they can write in how they found out about the church.
Here’s a few extra questions that people commonly have regarding the connection card.
A connection card is placed inside every program every week. And the program is given as people enter the “sanctuary” or “worship center” part of the building. This ensures that every person can use it to respond.
It is introduced during the welcome part of the service. At Carrollwood Church we have one or two songs, the welcome time, then a continued worship set. During the welcome time I come out, ask the people to greet and welcome each other, and then I draw their attention to the program. I ask them to pull out the connection card and say something like this:
“This morning when you came in each of you were given a program that looks like this (hold it up). Inside the program you should have a connection card that looks like this (hold it up). If you’re a regular attender or member you know how these work, but if you’re a first time guest we’d love to get to know you a little better. So we ask that you fill out as much information as you’re comfortable sharing.”
I then let them know to keep the card handy, because we’ll be making reference to it a little later in the service. Here’s what the back of the card looks like.
The card is then reintroduced during the end of the message. I make an appeal every single week using the card. This is where the card goes to work. So here’s what I say no matter what I’ve been preaching on:
“I’d like to invite you to pull out your connection card one more time. At Carrollwood Church we encourage everyone, whether you’re a first or second time guest, regular attender, or member, to take some kind of “next step” in your walk with God. So I just ask them,
“so what next step is God calling you to take today. Maybe your next step today is to become a follower of Jesus Christ. Or maybe you’ve never been baptized before. Baptism is a public confession that you belong to Jesus Christ. If you’ve never taken that step, take a moment to check it off and we’d love to begin preparing you for it. Or maybe you’ve been jumping around to lots of different churches, but God is finally impressing you that this is the place where you need to be. If that’s you, just check it off. So just take a few moments between you and God, and write down whatever next step God is calling you to take.”

I then give them an additional 30 seconds or so to write in their response. We then collect the offering, and this is the place where they can put in their connection card.
So those are the basics of the connection card. In the past, I didn’t make appeals every week. Or when I did, I never had a way to respond and follow up with those that had made decisions. Now we know exactly what decisions are being made and how to follow up with them effectively every single week.
Next time we’ll look at what happens after the service is over.
So have you tried a version of this? What would happen if you could effectively follow up with every decision that was made in your church?

Engaging First Time Guests So They’ll Want to Come Back: Part One

August 13, 2009 in assimilation with 5 Comments

**Here’s the second, third and last part of the series.
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]

Keeping Track: The Importance of Church Management Software

March 5, 2009 in assimilation,web tool with 9 Comments


Upon graduating from seminary three years ago, one of the last things on my mind was how to track attendance and follow-up on first-time guests. Armed with fresh theology and some church growth principles, I threw myself into preaching well and implementing small groups. And though those things have been a huge blessing, I realized that much more was necessary.

I needed to begin keeping good track of who was coming and going and why. So how do you do it? How you do keep track and help to assimilate the people that come to your church event? There are a number of reasons why you’d want to, and a number of ways to do it.
Why you should:
  1. To evaluate the effectiveness of your programming: If you don’t know how many come, you have no idea if you’re reaching your goals. Don’t have any goals? Ask Jesus to help you with that one.
  2. To know who needs follow up: If you’re not keeping track, you’re just looking at an amorphous mob of people that are all the same and have the same needs. The reality is never quite like that.
How you might:
  1. Paper: You might have a trusty notebook where you enter the attendance and information of people. If you have nothing else, and you don’t have a computer, you can rock it old school-style like this.
  2. Computer spreadsheet: If you have a computer, you might be tempted to use Excel or another spreadsheet to enter the information of your people. Though you may be able to accurately log their information, you’re putting the information at risk. I heard of one church that used this method successfully with up to 700 members. One day their spreadsheet became corrupted, and they lost all their information. The weeping and gnashing of teeth began on that day for them.
  3. Web-based application: I believe that this is the best option for a few reasons. For one, multiple people can add and edit information at the same time from any computer with web access. Two, you don’t have to worry about your computer or notebook being destroyed. If your computer happens to blow up, you still have the information since it’s stored “online.”
Who you might use:
There are probably about a dozen church management systems out there including Fellowship One, Arena (Shelby), Connection Power, ACS, and others. After considerable research, I ended up narrowing my options down to Fellowship One and Connection Power. Fellowship One is used by the likes of The Journey Church, Lakewood Church, and Fellowship Church. In other words, it’s used by many of the “major league” churches out there. It also includes major league pricing. It’s very expensive. Their cost is based upon average weekly attendance, like most similar systems, but they have quite an expensive setup fee. The pricing alone narrowed down my option to Connection Power.
Though it’s not perfect, I like Connection Power for a variety of reasons:
  1. It has a built in assimilation system for followup. If you don’t already have a system for followup, this will be important to you. It’s a followup system based upon calling people that attend for the first time. When people attend, they are “assigned” a care-caller that gives them a welcome call and answers any questions they might have. I tried this out, but this system didn’t work out too well for us. We instead went with a followup system based upon the book Fusion.
  2. Price: It’s considerably less expensive than most out there, while retaining the majority of the features and value. For a church of our size (about 100), you will pay about $600 per year for the features that we use.
  3. You can use it to schedule your volunteers. When you schedule a volunteer for an event, it will email them with all the pertinent information, including a link they can use to confirm or decline the invitation. You can also set it up to send you a text message when you have been assigned a volunteer assignment.
I don’t think any of these systems are perfect, but for the moment we’re enjoying using Connection Power.
What about you? What are you using for these purposes?

“Wowing First Time Guests”

November 28, 2008 in assimilation with 1 Comment

I recently took a team from my church to visit one of the burgeoning ”mega churches” in the area called LifePoint Church. I thought it’d be nice for us to gain a little perspective in how “we” do things in our church, and see how successful churches do “their” thing.

As I pulled into the church we were directed by volunteers on the next space available in the parking lot. The church is located in a facility that used to house a Winn-Dixie, so the parking lot is quite large. As we neared the doors there was a “greeter” guy about 10 feet from the entrance of the door. He reminded of the guys that stand by the entrance to the Apple Stores. Always some cool-looking dude. Not obtrusive, yet aware of your presence. He didn’t try to shake my hand. In fact, his hands were coupled together behind his back in a relaxed, leaning slightly back kind-of-way.

I walked in past him as he made direct eye contact with me. I was wondering what he would say to me. How would I be greeted? What witty greeting do mega churches use?

“Welcome.”

That’s all he said. I was feeling somewhat disappointed that he didn’t share something more profound or unique. When I walked in a little more I came in contact with the “second wave” of greeters. These guys were pretty much directly in my path. They smiled, shook my hands and said, “Welcome to LifePoint! We’re glad you’re here!” I felt that they had redeemed themselves by this point, at which point I began to understand their greeting strategy.

One guy outside giving a simple and quick greeting as people come in.
A couple of people on the inside, about ten feet from the entrance and they gave me a more complete greeting. From there, I noticed several people sprinkled through out, mingling with people, yet ready to help.

The way that I knew that they were official greeters is because they were all wearing a t-shirt that said, “Got Questions, Ask Me?” The phrase was written vertically across a section of the shirt, having been written in a distressed, alternative-looking font that I thought looked quite edgy.

I can’t say that I loved the worship service, or even the sermon that was presented, but I left that church service being very impressed by the intentionality of their hospitality teams. You could tell that they were expecting guests.

There were teams of people willing to help you check-in your kids into their children’s church programs. There were tables with food and drinks to ease your first-time jitters. There were signs that said “Welcome First Time Guests.” Everything about that place oozed intentionality and excellence in how they treat first time guests.

One of my leaders told me later as we debriefed in his car after the service-”If I was a first time guest, I would end up joining this church.”
I think his reaction speaks for itself.

So what are you doing to make people feel welcome when they visit your church? Are there certain things that you do or say? Certain things that you avoid doing or saying?

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