6. Engage your regular attenders. Make sure that you design your follow-up system so there are flags for your regular people to engage in the process. One of the ways we do that is we package the t-shirts we give away in white bags, so they stick out in the crowd after we give them to guests. We then train our “insiders” to be on the lookout for those white bags, and ask them to get to know these first-time guests.
7. Host a regular “New Here” reception. Host a regular (monthly, bi-weekly) reception for your guests. This gives you something to be talking to them about in all of your other communications and provides a great next step for guests. The Harvest Bible Church Planting movement encourages their plants to host regular “Party With the Pastor” events to help connect with newcomers. Northpoint’s NEXT environment would be another choice to look at if you are looking for examples of what to do at these events.
8. Send them some snail mail. We’ve been experimenting with a quarterly “recall” mailing to all of our first time guests. This piece arrives at the beginning of a season and tells our guests about what the expect in a bunch of different areas of our church. The big idea is that it helps to remind our guests that we’re still here and that we’d love to have them join us.
Creating clear and deliberate next steps for your guests is important. When people are first checking out your church, it needs to be obvious what they are supposed to do next. Make sure to design whatever you do with your guests in mind: What do they need when they first arrive with your church?
Bonus Idea: We stopped using the language of “First Time Guest” at our church and switched to “New Here.” This was a simple switch, but it helped us reach more of whom we wanted to reach. People are unlikely to identify on their first time time with you, but when they come back a second or third time, we want to them to be able to “opt-in” to our follow-up process.
