How to Help Guests Feel Welcome in God’s House, Pt.9

9. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. It is participatory.
4. It allows for participants to mark off a step of faith.
5. It provides church leadership the necessary information to follow up.
6. 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:-)