How to Connect with Church Guests
Here, we are discussing how to connect with church guests.
Video Transcript Below
Dick Hardy 0:03
Today I’m with my good friend, Nathan Teegarden from the great city of Kansas City. I want to take some time to talk with you about what we’ve got with Easter coming up here in about five weeks.
Dick Hardy 0:38
Nathan serves a great church in the Kansas City area, Summit Park Church. We’ve known each other since he since he was a college kid. Honestly, he serves in a great role in a variety of capacities at Summit Park and one of those capacities is guest follow up. So, Nathan, I’m just gonna throw a softball here. We have Easter coming at us. What are the things that pastors need to think about as Easter is coming at them?
Nathan Teegarden 1:15
As it relates to connections, there are certainly the messages you’re going to preach to your church to encourage them to invite their friends. Personal invitations are still the most effective way to get people to come to your church. So, as I ask people, “How’d you hear about our church,” it’s usually, “So and so invited us” or they’re already with those people. I know they got invited by so and so or a relative that invited them. So, that’s still the most effective way to get people to come out to church is your people inviting others that they know.
Nathan Teegarden 1:56
Obviously, there are other things that are important like SEO, Google and your marketing on social. But I really believe in just the old fashioned, motivate your people to reach out to others that they know.
Nathan Teegarden 2:12
So, one of the things we have been doing and did for Christmas to get people to come out to our Christmas service was, we did a Zoom volunteer rally. I think it was actually two weeks before, but we’re doing it for Easter, as well. We’re doing two weeks before Easter.
Nathan Teegarden 2:29
We’re getting all of our key leaders and volunteers together, and really motivating them to say, “Hey, here’s gonna be our strategy.” It’s really a time to pray. It’s a time to say, you know, “Hey, this is what our focus is going to be. Here are some tools for you to be able to invite your friends, family, neighbors and co-workers out to Easter.
Nathan Teegarden 2:53
I guess, I guess to answer your question, the thing to be thinking about is how can I inspire my church to invite a friend to Easter, like letting that be the focus. Because at the end of the day, connections doesn’t work if you don’t have anybody to connect. So, I mean, really connections start with saying, “Hey, we need to get people here.” So it’s kind of got a marketing edge to it.
Ever wonder what to say when you contact guests after they’ve visited the church? Well, no longer! Download this Done-For-You Follow Up Scripts PDF and you’ll be well on your way to communicating with clarity through text, email, and phone.
Nathan Teegarden 3:17
Again, that’s the most effective ways is through the people that already come to your church.
Dick Hardy 3:21
So, you have these volunteers, who already believe in the church, and you’re pulling them together with your Zoom call. Your pastor is pouring it on to them about how excited he is. You’re getting them excited to connect with their friends, because ultimately, we’re going to get to after Easter.
Dick Hardy 3:43
You know, the greatest day in the world is to talk to a pastor is the day after Easter. The worst day in the world to talk to a pastor is the Monday after the Sunday after Easter. Everybody’s gone.
Dick Hardy 3:59
What are you saying to your people when they’ve invited their friends, how do you take that further to connect them beyond Easter?
Nathan Teegarden 4:07
Well, I think there’s some responsibility that pastors and staff have to make sure that the volunteers at church have an easy win to get their friends to come back after Easter, they as in the pastor and the staff. We have a responsibility to really create the win for people.
Nathan Teegarden 4:24
The sermon series after Easter really speaks to that. What are we motivating them to come back to? That would be an easy way to motivate those that have invited others to say, “Hey, you got to come back to this new series that we’re starting.” Hopefully, they came to Easter so that you promote it at Easter, but it would be one that would be an easy lob, that it’s it really speaks to life and it’s something that would speak to somebody that’s maybe new to church that’s shy about church, is maybe unchurched or de-churched. It’s really practical and gives them some life wisdom. That would be an easy way to get them to come back. So, that’s really on our responsibility as pastors is helping them.
Nathan Teegarden 4:28
Then I think on the on the front side, giving them the understanding that this isn’t just an event. The goal isn’t just to get a bunch of people out to an event. The goal is ultimately to connect people. So, as you’re talking to your key volunteers, key leaders and say, “Hey, we got to be in this for the long haul.” So, not just say, “Hey, if you invited them, and they came, man, that is a huge, huge win. Now let’s focus on next steps.”
Want to know how to keep your church’s guests coming back week after week after week? Then download this Turn-Key Follow Up Process for Today’s Church PDF.
Nathan Teegarden 5:38
So, then that’s when I would move the conversation to next steps. Okay, what are their next steps in connecting in the church. That would be your next step. If you have something like a welcome party, that’s what we do, some kind of connect event where it’s like a first date.
Nathan Teegarden 5:53
They came and checked out the church, they came and sampled what you guys are all about, but now they get to actually meet you, they get to see where you’ve been as a church, where you’re going as a church and what are your values. What are your beliefs, all that you do, and they can meet key leaders? So, the goal would be to get them to that next step, just in terms of a connecting step.
Nathan Teegarden 6:14
A spiritual step would be baptism? Yeah. If they give their life to Christ, now we want to not only get them to the Welcome Party, but now we want to get them to baptism.
Nathan Teegarden 6:24
What I would say, to sum this all up, is you really have to have those next steps really in place for them to know what their next step is at the church. It’s not just about the one-time event, Easter, which is great they came, that’s really awesome. But how can now we connect them further into the life of the church, which is ultimately where they’re going to stick?
Dick Hardy 6:44
Those next steps have to be planned now, not then. In fact, you’re, you’re probably a day or two behind schedule now. So, you’ve got to pick it up, and you got to get those next steps in place.
Dick Hardy 6:56
I heard it said, Nathan, you and I didn’t talk about this ahead of time, so if we disagree, just slap my hand.
Dick Hardy 7:03
A good friend of ours, Ryan Wakefield suggested that the sermon series, immediately following the Sunday after Easter should have a strong attraction to males. The rationale for that is, that unchurched men are the hardest ones to get to church in the first place and to then come back.
Need help making intentional investments into the lives of your church members?
Dick Hardy 7:23
So, the wife or girlfriend has talked him into coming to church. And if you’re planning a series afterwards, it needs to have an angle to men. It’ll be way easier to get him and his wife or girlfriend back, versus doing something that’s fluffy. Now, I know it’s not politically correct. I didn’t say it right. But pastors just tuck that away.
Ever wonder what to say when you contact guests after they’ve visited the church? Well, no longer! Download this Done-For-You Follow Up Scripts PDF and you’ll be well on your way to communicating with clarity through text, email, and phone.
Dick Hardy 7:46
Now, Nathan is the creator of two of our recent PDFs. You’ve seen these PDFs we’ve released in the last couple of weeks, The Done-For-You Scripts, absolutely phenomenal piece that you need to get. I’ve got it right here in the blog here. So, just grab a hold of that and download it. It’s free to you. It’s text, it’s emails, it’s voice scripts, it’s everything.
Dick Hardy 8:13
The other one Nathan created is an outstanding piece, The Turn-Key Follow Up Process for Church Guests. What I appreciate so much about that, Nathan, is it was so simple. It’s about four pages, and it just very simply walks you through the process that you do to get guests to come back. So, those are both here in the blog.
Nathan Teegarden 8:36
Here’s the big thing on follow up. It’s both simple and complicated all in one. The idea of follow up is not complicated. It’s just reaching out to the people that have come to your church. But it gets very complicated, in that, when do I send a text message? When do I send the email? When is it too much? What do I say? Who says it?
Nathan Teegarden 9:00
All of those things are variables and factors, and timing is critical. The longer you wait to follow up, especially after you’ve had a big Easter service, everybody’s high fiving celebrating, the harder it gets. The last thing you want to think about is another big effort like sending out 100 emails and text messages and let’s get our follow up team going.
Nathan Teegarden 9:18
The way you can take the burden out of that is to plan ahead. It’s just simply we’ve laid the tracks to run on that for when Easter happens. Now we just press a button and boom, the follow up press process starts. So, it’s really important that that’s taken care of way before Easter ever happened.
As we discuss your follow-up process, we recommend you check out our blog titled: The Right Guest Follow-Up. This will maximize your ability to connect with church guests.
Dick Hardy 9:38
Nathan, this has been outstanding. I really appreciate you taking the time just to chat with our viewers/listeners here. Give us a hitch up on this. If pastors don’t remember anything you say what is that thing where you say, “You’ve got to remember this.”
Nathan Teegarden 9:55
I would say if you want to connect people into your church, you drew them into Easter, it’s not complicated but it does take work. It really does takes work. So, you want to make sure you have a great system in place, but don’t miss the personal side of reaching out to people.
Nathan Teegarden 10:21
And don’t put that burden all on yourself. Make sure you’ve got a team together. Make sure the people are following up, that it’s not just you doing it. But if you’ve got a team even better, because it’s not just gonna be one phone call, it’s gonna be several phone calls. It’s going to be emails. I would encourage you to go further than then to do less.
Want to know how to keep your church’s guests coming back week after week after week? Then download this Turn-Key Follow Up Process for Today’s Church PDF.
Nathan Teegarden 10:44
Just recently, we’re looking for a car. And man, those salespeople, they know how to follow up. They want to sell those cars, man. And they’re doing it for a temporal cause. We’re doing for eternal cause. So. let’s go after these people and help them to know the importance of being in church and ultimately finding and following Jesus.
Nathan Teegarden 11:11
So, that’s what I leave you with, it’s not just the event, it’s long after the event. Put the elbow grease into it. You’ll be glad that you did. And you’ll have people stick if you’ll do that.
Dick Hardy 11:23
Wow! Wonderful! That is great! Nathan, if you want to just check out the church that Nathan’s very much a part of and making a great impact, it’s SummitParkChurch.com. You could check out Summit Park there.
Dick Hardy 11:39
And again, be sure to download the two PDFs, The Done-For-You-Scripts and the Turn-Key Follow Up Process right here in this blog. Just take advantage of any of the free resources we have available for you. We want you to win. We want the church to win. When the guests come the church wants them to experience Jesus.
Dick Hardy 11:59
Thanks very much for being with us today. Make it a great one and be blessed.
Check out these blogs on connections, as well.
To Connect People in Your Church, the Path Must Be Clear
Blunder #1 in Assimilating New People
The Absolutes of the Post-Easter Guest Connection
The Perfect Follow-Up Plan for Church Guests
Rethink Easter: From Big Event to Big Impact
4 Action Steps for Guest Follow-Up Strategy from John 4
6 Steps to Get Guests Back After Easter
The Perfect Follow-Up Plan After Easter
Thoughts About Guest Follow-Up
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