How to Help Guests Feel Welcome in God’s House, Pt.9
By · Comments9. Use a Connection Card
I like to think of 1st time guests as 1st time GIFTS! They are gifts from God, and as a gift from God we, the local church, have a responsibility to be good stewards of them, or in other words to TREAT THEM WITH SUPERNATURAL CARE & TO CULTIVATE THE DIVINE SEED THAT HAS BEEN PLANTED IN THEM THROUGH THE PREACHING AND TEACHING OF GOD’S WORD! We can cultivate this divine seed by watering and nurturing through an effective guest follow up system.
Once a guest visits our church for the very first time (which we see every week here at The Dialogue Church; we average about 6.5% of our adult attendance as first time guests) we want to FOLLOW UP WITH THEM in order to show our appreciation for visiting our church and to nurture the seeds of love and truth planted from the worship experience.
In order to follow up with genuine appreciation we have to first collect their information and have them indicate that they are visiting for the very first time. This is why we use a CONNECTION CARD. A Connection Card is a simple tool to help guests feel welcome and let us know about their visit to our church; its also the primary tool we use to begin the follow up process.
There are certainly many viable ways to collect a guest’s information, but here is why we have chosen to use a connection card:
- It is a non-threatening way to ask for a guest’s contact information and to give them more information about the church’s ministries.
- It allows church leadership to ask for info from guests without calling them out, drawing attention to them, or pointing them out in any way.
- It is participatory.
- It allows for participants to mark off a step of faith.
- It provides church leadership the necessary information to follow up.
- It is a simple way for worship participants to communicate with the church leadership (staff & key volunteers).
No matter what shape you make your connection card you will want to keep the “asks” to a minimum. Only ask for information you are going to use – otherwise it takes to long to fill out the card and it is a waste to ask people for information you don’t plan on using. At The DC we keep it simple: name, address, email, and contact phone. Then we ask who invited them (I am a guest of) so we can follow up with that person as well (we like to encourage those who are inviting people to Christ and our church). We also ask if they are married, this helps us determine what kind of life group would best meet their needs.
Below is a SAMPLE Connection Card from the Dialogue Church. We’d be more than happy to send you any psd files so you could steal it and make it better (just let us know so we can improve ours as well:-)
How to Help Guests Feel Welcome in God’s House, Pt.8a
By · Comments8. COMPLETE, don’t Compete with other Churches
When a small group of 16 people first launched The Dialogue Church on Easter, April 8th, 2007 we had no idea how challenging the road would be, BUT MAN HAS IT BEEN WORTH IT! We are seeing Jesus save people, literally save people from total destruction; we are seeing Jesus change lives, restore marriages, rescue teenagers from drug abuse and suicide, and young men surrender to purity!
It was tempting in the early days of our church plant to “pit ourselves against other churches” in an attempt to make US look better – can you see how jacked up that is. Our Church is really GOD’S CHURCH and so is every other church that determines to lift up the name of Jesus according to the Scriptures and invade the culture with the Incarnational ministry of Jesus Christ!
So, we decided to become PRO-CHURCH, no matter how different the church or how big the church or how small the church – we are going to cheer on, celebrate, love on, share with, and promote the churches that are PROMOTING JESUS ABOVE ALL ELSE! You won’t catch me trashing another church that is actively transforming lives in the way of Jesus – and you won’t see me allowing anyone else around me doing it either! It is God’s Church not mine (now this doesn’t mean we don’t call sin – sin; and we don’t call deception what it is – deception. We need to uncover lies and injustice, but we don’t need to dog God’s church simply because we are jealous, envious, or different.
Most of the unchurched people in our community already have an uneasy feeling about the “division” in the church today. As many see it, this is the problem with world religions – religions divide, divisions cause conflict, and conflict starts war – and war creates chaotic power struggles where nobody really wins, but a lot of people die. NOW, I am not saying I think that way, but if in our churches we spend more time “TRASHING OTHER CHURCHES” in stead of TEACHING PEOPLE ABOUT JESUS AND SIMPLY BEING THE CHURCH – then we won’t see a lot of changed lives and we will only confirm the suspicions of the unchurched – that we can’t get along! But we know better, Jesus said, By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have LOVE ONE FOR ANOTHER! Let’s be ONE!
We are a BIG PART of an amazing movement of churches here in New England called NEW ENGLAND UNITED, pioneered by Pastor Anthony Milas of www.GraniteUnited.com. We are the 4th church plant out of GraniteUnited.com and our desire is to continue “churching” New England through this network of amazing churches. We share teaching resources, financial resources, fund new church planters, mentor young pastors, love on one another, take a pastors retreat every year together as a family of pastors and their families, we host a men’s conference every year (www.warriorconference.com), and a women’s conference every year, we have monthly leadership gatherings, and now we are starting a new branch of ministry training for all of our volunteers to be equipped for “kingdom impact”; another new venture is doing servant evangelism together – check out www.unitedlove2010.com!
How to Help Guests Feel Welcome in God’s House, Pt.8
By · Comments7. Give Away FREE STUFF
Giving away free resources and gifts is one way of showing guests that we appreciate them and their willingness to investigate the spirituality of Jesus at our church and hopefully to encourage them to come back again – where they can experience Jesus on a hole nutha level!
We love giving away FREE STUFF because it helps to brand Jesus & His Church as GIVERS instead of takers (which is clearly the biblical view on Jesus & the mission of his Church). Many unchurched people think that God and His Church are simply on the TAKE. But that just isn’t true, GOD IS A GIVER, NOT A TAKER – and we are here to prove that one GUEST at a time!
Giving away free stuff, especially to guests, is such a fun and simple way to demonstrate God’s HUGE HEART OF GENEROSITY. TheDC has learned this art of generosity from watching other amazing churches here in New England and around the country. Every week we get to give away FREE STUFF, not just to our guests but to regular attenders, members, and those who have never even attended our church. We give away free SERMONS online, free bibles, free books, free food, free coffee, free literature, free t-shirts ALL IN AN EFFORT TO COMMUNICATE AND DEMONSTRATE WITH GREAT CLARITY THE JESUS OF THE BIBLE – HE IS A GIVER, NOT A TAKER!
We see churches in the New Testament giving to the poor, giving to other churches, giving to one another and giving to the mission of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ! As a 3 year old church plant we have experienced all of those things; our mother church GraniteUnited.com has really led the way in teaching and modeling for us what it means to GIVE GENEROUSLY, as they never ceased to bless us and bless all of God’s churches all over New England and around the world! May we cultivate the same kind of God-hearted generosity!
