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The First Time Guest Box

We have always wanted to give out something significant to those who come for a visit for the first time. When we started we had no idea what we were supposed to give out. We tried to do a cool tiered pocket folder with each ministry in the church highlighted for visitors to take home and peruse. We failed at keeping that updated immediately! We settled on a sad handled craft bag with uninspired cookies and a letter of thanks for dropping by. Lame! We gave these out for years knowing how lame they were because we could not think of anything better.

One day I noticed the care and thought that our worship leader put into boxes she sent out to her photography clients and got inspired. Here is the current edition resulting First Time Guest Box we give out after every weekend service.

The Box

We buy these in boxes from uline.com. They are 9x8x2 inches and cost $0.63 when buying 100 at the same time. We print an invitation to connect on our website and facebook. We trim it up to fit nicely on the box and attach it with a glue stick. As you can see from this one, the corners were not glued well, resulting in that lived in look. It is a good reminder that quality control is essential!

The Crinkle Paper

We also get this from uline.com. It comes in big 10 lbs boxes that last us a very long time. It is $33 a box. It really sets the box apart by the feel of the quality and thought that went into the design.

The Good Things to Eat

We buy a dozen cookies from The Cookie Shoppe, a local gourmet cookie bakery that everyone loves! Having only one in the box seems kind of lame, but it is an awesome cookie of a size worthy of sharing. We want everyone to know it is a cookie from The Cookie Shoppe and proudly wrap each cookie individually with a sticker from The Cookie Shoppe! (Yeah, the wrappers are from uline.com as well.)

The tin is Espresso Pillows from Trader Joe’s. It is a scrumptious espresso bean and chocolate creation that is outstanding! They are $2.30 a can.

Good Things to Read

We include two books I really like. The first one is How Good is Good Enough by Andy Stanley. It is a good starter book for following Jesus. Andy talks about how people seem to think that the entrance requirements to heaven are based on our behavior. As it turns out, not one of us is good enough to earn heaven on our own. That is why we need Jesus! These books come in packs of 6 for $12.

The second book is The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. These books are $12 a piece. Keller tells the story we know as the Prodigal Son from each of the character’s perspectives. The kicker of book is that the flagrant spender turns out to be God, who lavishes His wealth of us. He spends a lot of time helping us understand that the older son wasn’t just indicative of the Pharisees of the day, but also those of us who grew up in church.  It is a power book to inspire those who are already kingdom people who happen to be looking for a new place to worship and contribute.

Each book as a bookmark that says READ ME at the top. I wrote a small description of why I liked the book enough to include it in the box. It is cut to just the right height that READ ME sticks out the top of the book.

Also included in the book stack are Invite Cards. This box has our worship invite card as well as an invitation to download our app. When we have special events coming up we also like to include a quarter cut card stock invitation to that next event.

All of this is held together by elastic loop ribbon, also purchased at uline.com. It holds everything together and looks great! They are $45 for 1000 loops.

Every Guest

At the end of the service, our worship leader prays and thanks everyone for coming. She will also say something like, “The pastors are making their way to the lobby. IF you are a first time guest with us they want to meet you and give you an awesome box with some great stuff in it! Be sure you find them!” People find us in the middle of the lobby. We give these out to every first time guest. If they come in a family, we try to give one to the family, but we don’t stop people from taking more than one. If there is a hoard of people in the family, we try to supplement with extra cookies, but they don’t need extra books!

Yes, the cost of each box approaches $20. It is a whole lot of money and, frankly, we don’t have any extra to throw away. We think this is an important investment. Once a person has decided to come for the first time, it is our job to get them to think about coming back. The boxes give guests a reason to come find and chat with one of the pastors and the quality of the items speaks to how valuable we think their visit was.

Do people come back because of the box. No. Well, not that alone. It is part of a larger effort to help people come back. No matter what you put in the boxes, it must feel like it is something valuable to you, otherwise it will hold no value to the person receiving it. That would be worse than not having anything to give in the first place!

 

 

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52 Weekends a Year

We only have 52 weekends a year to make an impact with weekend worship. That might sound like a lot to you. It is not. When much of what a pastor does is predicated on how the weekends go, we must work had to not let one weekend go to waste! Each weekend is filled with possibilities. You cannot control when new people darken the doors of your church. As such each weekend you must be ready for company!

Most of what falls into this category won’t be noticed by your regulars. That’s because they may be used to things being broken. First time guests won’t know it was broken last week. That’s actually what you are aiming at! You are taking away objections that people might have experienced otherwise!

For our church, we care for every weekend with these maxims in place:

Fix what is broken before Sunday

Most any issue in a church can be fixed in just a few days. The question is, which few days is your church going to choose to solve the problem. Sometimes it is a buzz in the sound system. Sometimes ballasts in the lobby lights need to be changed out. Sometimes it is the street signage. Whatever it is, if it can be seen during weekend worship, it needs to be handled immediately!

There are times the cost will be such that you will need board action to care for it. Don’t let the issue go to the back burner just because it involved multiple people and multiple weeks.

In the first month after arriving in Chico as the pastor of East Ave Church I did a complete walk-through of the campus with two of the board members in charge of buildings and grounds maintenance. When we got to the nursery there was a whole host of wrong! There were too many corner to hide, the cribs looked more like tiger cages stacked on top of each other and the standard rocking chairs had been chipping paint off the wall for year, leaving the carpet behind the chair covered in paint and sheet rock. When I pointed this out, one of the board members said, “You know, if we ever get some babies around there we will have to do something about this room.”

What?! No self-respecting parent will ever come back to this church after seeing the low value we place on children. I made it perfectly clear that we would never have families with babies again until we fixed the nursery.

It was obviously going to take many months to solve all the problems in that nursery.  That doesn’t mean we waited to get started! Before the next Sunday we had gliding rocking chair donated and fixed the paint on the wall. What can be done by next Sunday should be done by next Sunday.

Avoid random guest speakers

Your weekends are precious. The phone constantly rings with evangelists, guest choirs, the Gideons, local compassion groups and the like. Not only that, but you will also get emails about visiting missionaries on deputations and international denominational people who would like to have some face time with your people.

Be wise in how you implement these options in your ministry. If you think about your congregation as a static group of people who show up 50 weekends a year, then bringing in a music evangelist for variety and to give you a week off sermon prep sounds like a good idea. The way I look at it, we have the opportunity to have guests show up unannounced this weekend. I would like them to choose whether or not to come back based upon our regular worship, not some musician who will never be back.

Do not take your leaders out of church

Early on in my tenure at East Ave Church we hosted a Family Camp Out for anyone who wanted to go camp with us. We took about 50 people with us! When we were averaging around 80 in weekend attendance, that was a big deal! Since we were taking all of our leadership, we asked a local mission to bring in a band and provide testimonies from the men in the program. They were such a great draw that, even though we had 50 people out of town, attendance was about average!

When I got back I met with a young family that had just moved to Chico. They had been in church three times. The first two they found a lively bunch of friendly folks. The third weekend, no one talked to them. They stayed for the monthly potluck after and no one sat at the table with them. They felt abandoned and heartbroken. I tried to explain that even though the sanctuary must have looked the same, most of those people were also visiting. The reason why no one talked to you is that the only poeple from the church left in town were the anti-social people who did not want to camp!

But, we lost that family anyway. And I learned a valuable lesson. Every weekend is important! That was the last Family Camp Out.

WYSIWYG

For us, what you see is what you get! We do the same stuff every weekend. We do some awesome music, teach through books of the Bible, pray, take communion together and take an offering. That’s it. We want to always give our best foot forward. We work within that frame to keep things fresh. We do less things and try to do them better every weekend.

On occasion we will have a missionary speaker, but in such a way as to fit into what we do every weekend. If you share your church culture with most missionaries they can find a way to relate their message to the new audience. Sometimes we might bring in someone to talk about an opportunity to give or participate in something cool, but we don’t give more than 15 minutes to anything! That way we can still do all the regular things that we want new guests to judge us on.

Keeping 52 weekends a year sacred takes much work. It means not mailing in the message. It means not giving up your platform for impact. It means being ready for company at any time, because consistency is a vital part of a healthy church.

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Clean

My colleague, Jeremy Rhodes, was leading a campus Christian club at a local junior high school. The students were freely sharing why their parents didn’t take them to church anymore. One student confessed that they tried a bunch of different churches in Chico, but none of them ever quite made the grade. Evidently, there are too many “dusty” churches and the mom just couldn’t handle it.

I thought, “I wonder if that family was one of the once-and-done visitors we have had!” Maybe! We have a few dusty corners complete with cobwebs and abandoned stuff. But life is so much cleaner than it used to be around here!

When I arrived at the East Ave Church to interview in July 2002, there are several words that would describe the church campus. The most descriptive may be “cluttered”. There was stuff stored everywhere! Literally! Everywhere! It was not valuable stuff. It was not trash. It was all something in between. And it was everywhere!

Every classroom had it own supply cupboard with a pile of classroom fodder along side. The lobby had an old sectional couch someone donated. There was a misplaced privacy rail in an alcove hiding bags of donated clothes and such.

My favorite piece of clutter was the electric organ – the kind that was installed with furniture sized speakers behind grill cloth on either side of the platform. It was in a lobby off the sanctuary platform. It was kind of a big guy, with the seat and floor petals all stacked up along side. I asked why it was there. I was told that 10 years before it was moved out of the sanctuary because it could no longer be kept in tune with the piano. Ten years it had been sitting there! I asked why it was still there. I was told, “You know, in case someone wants to move it back in.”  Like someone is going to reinstate a tone-def organ!

In my first six months I got a 20 yard dumpster and filled it: broken furniture, clutter in the legitimate storage rooms, Christmas and Easter cantata music from the 70s, and anything that we would replace rather than repair to put back into service. Then we did it again three months later filling another 20 yard dumpster.

Some of it was easy to dump. The church people needed to be reassured that every small church and Christian campground had all the off-pitch organs and mimeograph machines they could use. They needed to be reminded that if we ever did reconstitute a choir we would want to buy new cantatas and that there was no end of surplus WWII era desks in Chico.

Other things were more delicate. No one had used the old pulpit for decades in our church. Yet, for all that time it never was far from the center of the platform, living for years in sight on the back wall. Not knowing if anyone thought the pulpit was sacred, I moved it from a visible storage spot to one no one would see. I thought if anyone would miss it, they might ask after it. No one did. It went in the second dumpster!

We cleared the lobby of anything resembling clutter to open it up. We moved all the children’s classrooms resources into a single closet. We cleaned the carpets, chairs and tables — and the walls! Anything that stayed either cleaned up or got a coat of paint. It was a remarkable transformation! Within months the campus began to clean up and appear spacious, maintained and cultivated. It would take years before we actually renovated every room that needed it or fixed every broke resource, but until then, the broken stuff at least looked clean!

Now days, I wonder what I don’t see anymore. It was easy for me to spot the problems when I walked in the doors in 2002. Now, all of the clutter is my clutter. The mismatched furniture and kitschy decor is stuff I moved in. I must regularly ask people to be a fresh set of eyes for me. What has to go? What must be cleaned? What project did we start and never complete?

We must be ever vigilant as to what our church campuses look like to a first time visitor. Bring in friends that don’t go to your church to hurt your feelings. Let them tell you all the ugly your church has to offer. It is better to hear about it from them rather than let everyone judge you!

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A Guest Thank You Card

For our church, every first and second time guests get a handwritten thank you card from the person who brought the message that weekend. Yes, handwritten. WE do not send form letters or post cards — we actually sit down with a pen and write! We include in the card a $5 Starbucks gift card (sans the sleeve) and an Invite Card with the service times on it.

A typed form letter used to be the hallmark of good guest communication. Now, it just looks like one more piece of form junk mail. Do not waste the opportunity to make a big impression! Who writes thank you cards by hand beyond the obligatory wedding gift thank yous? That’s right — no one.

That is an exclusive club you can be in for the price of card and a stamp! I cannot tell you how many people come back the next week and rave about how astonished they were to get a hand written card in the mail! Most pastors never find the time to do this, but this is such a basic and simple way to increase your ability to get visitors to come back! Why? Because they know that you do not consider them anonymous and you acknowledged their effort to roll out of bed and try something new. That’s why you should hand write first and second time guest thank you cards at all costs!

Write your guests on Monday. Get that card in the mail as fast as you can! The faster you get it to your guest, the sooner they will think about returning! Really! It works that way! Monday is also a much better day to recall who you met and which cards came from people you didn’t get a chance to chat with.

First Time Guests

I write nearly the same kind of message on every first time guest’s card:

Mark and Margret,

Thank you for joining us for worship on Sunday! I hope you felt at home with us, because we think church should feel like family. Please consider coming back again soon!

Pastor Ron

If I recall meeting them I will include, “It was great to meet you!” If the guest wrote down that someone I know invited them, I will say, “Thanks for letting Kevin drag you along with him to church this weekend.” If I do not recall meeting the person on the card, I will write, “Please come again and hunt me down after the service so I can put a face with your name.” (Almost a direct quote from Fusion, by Nelson Searcy.) It works!

Take a look through your stack. Many times roommates will come to church together and fill out separate Connection Cards. I switch up the language a bit so I don’t send the exact handwritten card to the same address! Also, look for people you don’t know in your stack. Sometimes guests will not tick the box identifying them as first or second time guests. Sometimes it is because they have been coming a few weeks and you have just recently earned the trust to receive their Connection Card. Either way, if it is a first time Connection Card they should get a note from you. If you get a Connection Card from someone and you are uncertain if it is a first time card or not, check the name against your database.

Second Time Guest

If the Connection Card comes from someone who also gave me a first time guest card, then the handwritten note says:

Mark and Margret,

You came back! Thank you for trusting us again with your weekend worship. Please keep it up! Perhaps you will find a church to call home in us.

Pastor Ron

If the Connection Card marked “second time guest” is the first time they trusted me enough to leave the Connection Card, then I combine the two sentiments.

At East Ave Church, we have a Kids Zone check-in system. We use the one with our database. When new parents check in their kids, they often give us information that they wouldn’t leave on the Connection Card. When that happens, our Children’s Director writes the family with much the same idea.

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What to Do with a Connection Card

After the Sunday service, what happens to the Connection Cards? Most of your Connection Cards will be dropped in an offering plate. Some will be handed directly to you and some may even be left on a pew. Your usher team (or whomever is responsible for securing the offering) needs to know just how important those cards are to you! If not, they may be locked away in a safe or stashed some place secure! Let your team know where you will look for those cards on Monday morning!

When you get your hands on this week’s Connection Cards, they should be sorted and reshuffled and resorted a few more times times.

 First and Second Time Guests

Those people that self-identify on a Connection Card as being first or second time guests should get the first priority. These cards may or may not have a complete set of information, but you can use whatever is given to you. If you were given a physical address, you should send a handwritten card in an envelop along with a small token of appreciation for the card. I send out a $5 Starbucks card. These should go in Monday’s post.

If the card contains a phone number call it. If the call is answered or it goes to voicemail, the conversation starter is the same: “Hey, I am Ron — the pastor from East Ave Church. I wanted to personally thank you for attending with us this weekend and for trusting us with your Connection Card. If you have any questions about the church or even the Christian faith, I would love the chance to answer them. And, by the way, this is a good number to reach me.”

If the card contains an email address, you should write on Monday morning. Your email will say much of the same stuff.

Thank you for being our guest on Sunday! We are always honored when someone trusts us with their Sunday morning. I hope you will come join us again soon.

By the way, if you have yet to visit us online, you can find more information about the church at our website, www.EastAveChurch.org. You can see how active we are at our facebook page, www.facebook.com/eastavechurch.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Pastor Ron

I Raised My Hand Checkbox

If someone checks the “I Raised My Hand” box (or a box indicating that they have made a decision to follow Jesus on Sunday) it is imperative that you meet with them right away!

Never let a decision for Jesus linger. These opportunities don’t come up often. Meet them for coffee and learn their story. Find out who he or she is and where he or she is coming from. Then, you can invite this person to make the next step — whatever that may be! The next step you offer will change depending on what is shared.

Prayer Requests

When people use your Connection Cards to give you prayer requests, acknowledge the request in some way. That can be in a phone call, text message or email. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that they know they were heard and that you care.

If you have a prayer team set up, you should compile all the requests into an email and send it out.

Of course, you should also pray for the requests as well!

Sign Ups

If they are solicited signups through check boxes or written statements, the people should be informed you got the information — again by email text of phone call. It is not enough to stick them on a list.

Everything Else

The last time you sift through the cards look for anything that doesn’t fit in any other category. Make sure everything written on the card gets dealt with early in the week if you can!

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Work Mondays

I know. All pastors are supposed to take Monday off, especially if you are the only full-time paid staff. Your weekends are exhausting. It takes a lot of energy to lead a small army of volunteers to get the campus ready for Sunday: prepare the printed material, write a sermon and coordinate the music, coordinate tech crew, schedule greeters and ushers, hospitality and children’s classroom teachers. You need a day off.

Work Mondays anyway.

All morning on Sunday, people are handing you bits of information, introducing you to guests, opening a window into what is going on in their lives and neighborhoods. A pastor’s job is to act on all of this information. A key leader was missing because his mother fell over the weekend. One of your regular attenders is in the hospital. The toilet handle in the second stall of the women’s room is singing. You’re out of 9 volt batteries.

There are three big reasons for working Mondays:

Memory: You can’t remember everything you will need to do if you walk into the office 48 hours later after a sabbath day of rest. Your brain should dump and take the day off as well! No matter how much you write down, you won’t recall it all. And you will feel like an idiot asking an usher to drive down to the Piggly Wiggly for the most expensive two pack of 9 volt batteries on the planet. The best way to retain as much of your week’s agenda is to get to it right away.

Shipping: Some stuff only comes through the post, so getting that stuff ordered early in the week is imperative — especially since anything you need guaranteed to be here in two days will always take three. If what you ordered also needs to be installed, the earlier in the week you get it the more likely it will be in place and ready for service next Sunday. Sometimes what you order the first time doesn’t work, won’t fit or is already broke. Starting early in the week will give you a chance to order twice if you need it!

Communication: Your new guests need to be contacted as early as possible. Thank you cards for your volunteers that went beyond their regular duties can be a huge boost, especially written on Monday! Those that missed church because they are sick should get a reach out from you. Perhaps they need some hot meals delivered to the family? All of the usefulness of a church body shouldn’t wait until Tuesday.

It may sound a bit aggressive to get an early jump on the week. It is. Your church doesn’t need you to be passive. “Passive leader” is an oxymoron. So, get out there and get a good jump on the week!

Take Tuesday off.

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Visitor vs Guest?

The English language can be ambiguous at times and we tend to use similar words interchangeably. And sometimes the subtle differences can make a huge difference in timbre of the meaning you wish to convey.

Much in the case of “visitor” and “guest”. In our weekend services we found that we were using these to words interchangeably to identify the new faces that show up at church each week. Is there a difference in how we use these two words? Does it matter? This may seem obvious to you, but it was not for us!

This has actually been a staff meeting discussion on many occasions! After much debate we have declared, at least for ourselves, that the people who show up for the first time in weekend worship are often “visitors” to our worship service, but we should always refer to and treat them as “guests”.

“Visitor” is a generic term for someone who does not yet belong. This word can refer to anyone from a diner at Denny’s to an intergalactic alien.

On the other hand, “guest” refers to someone that has been invited — someone that has been long anticipated and wanted! That is a big deal! Referring to someone as a “guest” means that we have been planning for them to join us and that we have been awaiting their arrival. It is another level or two above “visitor”.

That said, everything we do focused on new people attending our worship services has “guest” attached to it. It takes some disciple, but even the words that come out of our mouths need to convey the say idea. We have been anticipating these people walking through our doors, even if they simply wandered in off on the street! So, in print, from a microphone and in our signage we have purposefully changed our nomenclature to bring honor to every guest that walks through the door.

May your church be full of guest that will soon become family!

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The Connection Card Construction

What goes on the Connection Card is as important as how you use it. And as far as I can recall, our Connection Card is a direct result of Nelson Searcy’s book, Fusion. Here is ours. It prints three to a page. We cut off .75 inches from each side so it stacks well with the Loop when it is attached. This is ALWAYS printed on card stock.  Don’t go cheap on paper — ever!

The Front Side:

The Date

We print new Connection Cards every week with the date already printed on the card. Don’t make people think. Some people, may stop filling in the Card altogether if they don’t know the date. And, people won’t get the date right every time anyway. It can be frustrating trying to guess when the Card came in. We also include check boxes at the top so that people can tell us which service they attended that weekend. Sometimes I can recall a person just by knowing which service he or she attended.

If you are just getting started and printing every week is daunting, then don’t put a date box in at all. When you get them on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning you can put the date on them yourself!

What Are You?

People don’t always know how to describe themselves, so we help them out with only four choices: 1st Time Guest, 2nd Time Guest, Occasionally Here, Regular Attender. This is important! Some people will fill a Card out their first or second time. How you use the information will be different accordingly. Some people will hide in plain sight and won’t let you know who they are until they are a regular. Let them self-identify for you!

Also, this answers the question about how long it takes to become one of the family. Answer: three weekends! After the first and second time, people should feel a sense of belonging and possession. For us, you don’t need to to hit certain mile markers before you will be accepted as one of us! We will accept you right were you stand!

Most “occasional” people know who they are. They may be coming to visit family from out of town or are true Christmas and Easter attendees.

The Digits

Give people plenty of room to write addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and the like. The more room you give, the more usable information you will get right off the Card! The more room the easier it will be to read.

How Did You Find Us?

A fabulous question! If a friend invites them, you will know who to thank! You will also know who your ally is in keeping up with the person on the other end of the Card. You may also find that people found you online, on facebook, or simply commute by the church five days a week for work. You might be surprised by what you will find! The best find is when someone you don’t know thinks enough about your church to invite their friends to come. The inviting party might not have let you know who they are yet, their friends just ratted them out!

The Back Side:


Prayer Requests and Comments

We tell everyone that we will pray for their requests each week. Of course, we love to pray for people in need. This is also a great way to find out what is happening in the lives of your congregation.

It is also a great place for comments — some encouraging, some discouraging. Your people need to know that they are being heard, even if it is a complaint. It is best to let poeple just tell you.

My Next Step

The steps in the blue box are constants on the card. They are check boxes corresponding to how to take the next step with us.

“I raised my hand today” comes from how we end every service. We present the gospel and give people a chance to respond to God. Yes, every week!

“Baptism” is an important second step for us. We don’t wait to baptize if we can help it. We baptize any weekend any service! We want to celebrate a new life in Jesus!

“I want to become a member” is a step farther. In our tradition we place a high value on quality membership, not quantity. When someone checks this box we schedule the next membership class to talk about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.

Participation Box

This is a rotating content box that reflects the kinds of events and opportunities that people can respond to or to let us know they are coming. These match up to what we have published in our Loop.

Our Card

Feel free to steal our Connection Card (right click on the link and choose “save link as”).  We print it with Microsoft Publisher. If you have publisher, feel free to download the source document and make it your own. Have  a Connection Card of your own you want to share? Send it to us!

Why is this a Non-Negotiable?

The Connection Card is how people tell you who they are. This is a piece of how you will make new friends. If you and your church are into that, then you must do this! Download, change the card, and print them for this weekend!

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Connection Card Implementation

If you have not read the why of Connection Cards, start here.

Here is how we use them on the weekends:

  1. Everyone who walks into a weekend service gets a Connection Card. It comes on our Loop (all the printed announcements for the weekend; also functions as a guest information center). Everyone gets an Invite Card. It is clipped together with a Bic Round Stic. The greeters in the lobby attempt to get to everyone with a packet. If someone sneaks by the greeters, we ask early in the service if we missed anyone and walk them around the sanctuary.
  2. At the beginning of the message, the weekend speaker will say in a friendly manner, “If you got a Loop today, you also got a Connection Card. If this is your first time with us, we ask everyone to fill one out every weekend. The front side you let us know who you are. The back side you let us know if you found something in the Loop you want more information about or if you have a prayer request for the church staff. There’s also some check boxes about regular and upcoming stuff. So, check it out. If you happened to be new and you don’t know if you trust us yet, we get that! Fill it out anyway and sit it next to you. If we earn your trust by the end of the service, please drop it in the offering plate when it goes by.”
  3. We take the offering at the end of the service. Someone will step up and say, “We want to continue our worship today by giving His tithes and our offerings. If this is not your church home, this is for our regular attenders. If you are a guest with us, we would love to have your Connection Card if we have earned your trust today.”

Why the pens?

We give away a Bic pen with every Connection Card every weekend. Many people return them after the service, but we don’t really care. We care that when a guest starts to fill out a Connection Card that a pen is available! A guest will not be asking their pew-mates to borrow a pen. We buy them for less than 10 cents a unit.

This is also a great reason to buy pens with your church name and such on it, although they will cost more. Just make sure that the pen you buy is actually functional. You don’t want pens with your church name on them that doesn’t write!

Why all the Connection Cards?

We ask everyone to fill the Connection Card out. The reason is simple: you are giving your guests cover. If they are trying to hide in the crowd, then they will also give you a Connection Card just like everyone else!

When we got started, I straight up told everyone in the congregation in attendance that the cards were important. If we all want guests to let us know who they are so we can build a bridge to them, we are going to have to all modify our behavior. I said that every weekend for a month and about once a month for the next six. When I was quizzed about it I would tell regulars that if they just wrote their names on the card, that would be sufficient enough each week.

Still, not everyone does. That’s alright because we have enough buy-in from the regulars to give cover to the guests!

Why is this a Nonnegotiable?

There is a a lot of room between being creepy and being disinterested. Your church must find your middle ground. Asking up front for personal info before you have earned trust is creepy. Not making it clear that there is a way to connect with your church will give you the appearance of disinterest. I know you aren’t aloof, but still you are letting people walk out without giving people a chance to give you contract information. You may be praying they come back, hoping you remember their names and that they know how welcome and wanted they are. You may even wake up at night wondering if that family will return. But, if you don’t pave the way back to your front door, you will never build a relationship.

Make the change this week!

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The Connection Card Motivation

Not everyone who walks through your doors on a Sunday wants to be discovered. However, if you are in a small church, most poeple who visit your church are looking to be engaged. Otherwise, everyone knows that you can hide in the crowd at a large church. They came daring you and your community of faith to build a bridge to them.

Before you can engage a guest, you must give your new friend a way to tell you who he or she is.

When I was growing up in a small church, the lady that manned the front door was the church’s MVP. She would recognize anyone who had attended the church in the last thirty years and greet them accordingly. When new people showed up for worship, she would have them sign the guest registry book with names, address and home phone. Then all the new people would be adorned with an embroidered red rose sticker on lapels to alert all the regulars to be on their best behavior.

Where I pastor, that would never fly! People are very private about everything but facebook posts. And there is nothing more private than addresses, cell phone numbers and email addresses — all the stuff you really want. How do you help people feel comfortable enough to hand over contact information?

We tried a bunch of ideas that, frankly, just were not good enough. We put guest cards in the pew backs and asked all new people to alert us to their presence. Essentially we asked poeple to self-identify themselves to the people they shared a pew with by reaching over to one of the pockets and retrieving a golf pencil from the holder. Then, they would have to write in tiny letters, because the cards had to be small to fit in the pocket. This had to be accomplished in the first 15 minutes of church so the cards could be retrieved with the offering.

Obviously, we had some big problems. First, even people who want to be discovered want some anonymity. Second, we made it hard to give us the info because of the cards size. Most of the time the cards we did get were illegible. The golf pencil exacerbated the problem. Third, we had not yet earned the trust of the guest. And what credibility we did gain was probably not extended to all the pew-mates! We used to pass the offering plates before the message, so we were asking guests call themselelves out in the first fifteen minutes!

For us, the dam broke when I first read Fusion, by Nelson Searcy. If you have not read it yet, it is a must! It helped us develop our thinking on guest engagement. We now understand our Connection Cards in three stages: Construction, Implementation and Engagement. This is a lot to take in all at once so we will handle these topics one at a time.

The CONSTRUCTION of the Connection Card will be handled in another post. There are some key ideas that will help you get more guests to use the cards!

The IMPLEMENTATION is how you use the Connection Card during the service to get the best results.

ENGAGEMENT is about what you do with your guest cards. We will talk about how to pursue guests in a non-creepy way in another post.

Why is this a Nonnegotiable?

Why wait to become good with guests? Seriously, it just doesn’t take more than a week to put this into practice. The sooner you get this part down, the sooner your church can sustain real growth. Don’t wait! You can start this right now!

I will say that this constitutes a small culture shift, and not just a nuts-and-bolts kind of change. As long as you are an evangelical church, it is one you need! Don’t wait! Do it now!