Podcast

095 – How to Celebrate the Day after Easter

Posted on April 5, 2021December 4, 2023 by Ryan Sparks

What’s in this Episode?

The Monday after Easter is the greatest day in the life of the pastor. They are so excited. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk to you about how to channel that excitement and enthusiasm into your guests so that they get to carry over that experience from yesterday into the days and weeks to come.

Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:00
Well, there’s one thing I know, and that is that the Monday after Easter is the greatest day in the life of the pastor. They are so excited. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk to you about how to channel that excitement and enthusiasm into your guests so that they get to carry over that experience from yesterday into the days and weeks to come.

You know, I gotta tell you, one of the things I’ve learned is that the Sunday after Easter is the greatest day in the life of the church. That’s exactly this day we’re looking at right here. I found that out on April 9, 2007, little trivia piece here for your friends. On April 5, 2007. We started Leaders.Church, and here we are 14 years later. It’s absolutely amazing what the Lord has done. You watched a piece of the journey kind of fairly up close. And so the Lord has been unbelievably good to us.

But I remember that Monday. So we, you know, Thursday, April 5, 2007, we, you know, I get on the phone and I start calling pastors, and we’re doing all this. And on Monday, I get on the phone. And man when I got on Monday, every pastor wanted to talk to me. I mean, they were so excited. Oh, Dick, I gotta tell you, oh, man, you know, we’ve been running 300. And we have 550, you know. And so, you know, we love it. And I’ll bet today, you’re feeling pretty good. And Nathan’s feeling good. Had a great day at Summit Park yesterday, and I had a great day.

I mean, it just, Easter is such a great day in the life of them. That people’s lives were changed at your church. Anyway, kudos, Pastor for the work you’re doing. And we want to celebrate with you. It’s the Monday after Easter. And I want to talk with Nathan. Nathan is the North Campus Pastor at Summit Park Church in the Kansas City area, and the Connections Director. And so he is like Mr. Guru on all things, connections. And so, if you want to figure out okay, all those guests that came yesterday, what do I do now? Nathan’s gonna take us right through it.

So, what’s the very first thing they should do?

Tip#1: Reach out.

Nathan Teegarden 2:12
Well, the very first thing is gonna sound obvious, but you got to reach out to them. Yeah, you know, you’ve got you got their contact information. Now you got to take that first step, and have a plan to reach out to them. So, that can look a lot of different ways.

In today’s world, it’s not just a phone call, though, I think it should include a phone call. And that’s the most important step is just, you know, letting them know, hey, we’re reaching out to you, we’re thankful that you came, but certainly can include, you know, text message, obviously, email. And but it’s you got to reach out to them, you’ve got to have a plan in place a team in place, depending on how many visitors you had.

And do it quickly. Because that’s a really important timing is important on this, that you take the time and quickly say, hey, we noticed that you were there. We appreciate you, you came out and you’re a part of the service.

Dick Hardy 2:58
Yeah, that’s cool. And you know, one of the things I watched pastors, do I find it in myself, I’m a fairly aggressive guy. But I have found that there’s this phone reluctance thing. And pastors have it all the time. I don’t want to invade…

Listen, what’s going to happen, you’re afraid someone’s getting on the phone, you’re not quite sure that you’re gonna say it right. What happens when you call people and they don’t recognize your number? You’re going to voicemail. I need to tell, you know, if you’ve got six people you need to call, I’d be shocked. If you talk to one. I mean, there’s no way you’re talking to two of them, you’re leaving voicemail.

To that end, I will tell you, we’ve got in the show notes what we call Done for You scripts of exactly what to say, on the phone call, you know exactly what to say in the text. And let me tell you, if you haven’t gotten the Done for You scripts, it’s free to you just download it, three download, and use that because that will help you and learn particularly on this day after Easter.

Nathan Teegarden 3:54
Yeah, absolutely. And I think as a part of that kind of what we do at Summit Park is we’ll make the phone call and do a follow up text with them. So, we can have a conversation with them. And again, goes to voicemail. But you know, here’s the reality, so many people are expecting a sales pitch or like, you know, selling insurance or whatever.

And they’re expecting but when they hear hey, this is Nathan from Summit Park. Hey, just wanted to say thanks so much for coming out and being a part of our service. It’s almost like oh, well, thank you. And then you do a little follow up text, man, I get responses.

Dick Hardy 4:24
And I don’t know how you do, but what I do the follow up text I just said, hey, just left you a voicemail. Yeah, just left a voicemail. You know, and I would love to chat if your free… or whatever it is, you say.

Nathan Teegarden 4:24
Yeah, yeah. I usually leave a question because, you know, how did you enjoy it?

Dick Hardy 4:37
Because that will get engagement.

Nathan Teegarden 4:40
Because I’ve noticed a lot of people especially younger people are more like, hey, I just want to engage on text, you know, so you offer the phone call and they appreciate that the voicemail and you can like talk to them, you know, leave that message, but then they want to engage over text. And so you give them that option. If they want to call you back, they can but usually they do text.

Dick Hardy 4:58
That’s right. Okay, what’s the second one here?

Tip#2: Appreciate them.

Nathan Teegarden 5:00
Yeah, and so I mentioned this just a minute ago, but it’s really important that you appreciate them. You’re not trying to sell them something, obviously, you’re not even… what we do is we don’t even want to mention like taking them to their next step quite yet.

We want the first thing that they hear from us to be, hey, we’re just glad that you took time out of your day, out of your busy schedule to come and be a part of our service. Like that really means a lot to us. And we just want you to know, we appreciate that. We’re glad that you’re here. We noticed you, and we’re thankful for you. And if there is any questions that you might have, hey, reach out, we’d love to have a conversation.

Dick Hardy 5:33
Yeah, no, that is so good. Let’s do it. What’s the next thing they could do?

Tip#3: Let them know how to connect.

Nathan Teegarden 5:37
So, what we do as a part of our guests follow up plan is the first thing is, you know, we call text and that’s appreciation. So that’s the first contact, we are thankful you came out. But a few days later, usually Wednesday, we reach out and want to help them take their next step, you know, to connect in the church.

And so we point them to what we do is a welcome party, but it’s just an event where we have everybody come out to learn more about the church. And so we do want to after we’ve had that initial conversation, move them in a direction of connecting in the life of the church, whether that’s in a small group, whether it’s serving on a team, or just taking that first step to, learn more about the church at our welcome events.

Dick Hardy 6:14
Yeah, so yeah, that’s good. So do you make any reference to the next week? Anything? In terms of what’s coming up?

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.

Tip#4: Let them know they should come back next week.

Nathan Teegarden 6:21
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, we do talk about, we want them to come back for the next weekend, you know, that’s really important, we’re not just trying to do a big event, we want them to have a big impact on their lives. And that involves consistency of coming to the church. So, it always next kind of comes back to how you plan your next sermon series. But it’s good to have some talking points on that, you know, hey, we will be rolling out a new series, and it’s gonna be called this and we’re gonna be highlighting this aspect.

And maybe you can relate to this and your own busy schedule. And then that’s really what we’re going to identify. So, I want to encourage you to be a part, I think you’re really gonna be blessed by it love to have your whole family. So, that’s just another little reason to come out and be a part of the church.

Dick Hardy 6:58
Well, and then you guys, as I remember, you guys have a survey of some sort that you send out to guests. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Nathan Teegarden 7:05
Yeah, so as a part of it, we use texts in church. And so it’s really simple, it’s an automated way to reach out to people, and we use the workflow. So it’s a series of text messages and emails and, you know, people respond to it, they can interact with us.

Dick Hardy 7:18
And just, you know, we have the Textinchurch, link here. So, if you’re interested in that kind of thing Nathan’s talking about right now, just click into it, they’ll describe the whole thing for you.

Tip#5: Send out a survey.

Nathan Teegarden 7:27
And it’s amazing, it will really save you a lot of time, but still allows you to have that personal touch with people, which is what you want to be able to do. So we, you know, we do this whole workflow with them and have a conversation with them. And a part of that is an email that we send out and get, it has a link to a survey.

So we want to know their feedback. They’ve got a perspective, I think what it does is it communicates value, like we value their perspective, even just as a guest. I think it’s just a way to appreciate them just another way to do it.

And then it gives us valuable feedback on are we missing it somewhere? And where do we, you know, strike? Well, while the iron is hot? Like, the area that’s really doing? Well, hey, let’s really hone in to that. So it helps us identify areas that maybe were weak in, that we can do a better job of, and to really identify, okay, this is really working. Let’s keep on putting our time and energy there.

Dick Hardy 8:14
So, how long is that survey?

Nathan Teegarden 8:16
It’s about 10 questions. Yeah, because here’s the deal, you don’t want to use a lot of their mental calories, you know, and people will opt out, if they know it’s going to be a big long thing. They’re just going to be like, no, I’m done with this. So, you want to make sure it’s short, quick, easy, and make sure the questions don’t overlap, that they’re distinct and different. So you maximize our time.

Dick Hardy 8:37
This is totally off subject. So I don’t know, I’ll probably get in trouble for this. But so I’m in a burger joint the other day, and this buddy of mine is the manager, he said he wants me fill out the survey, I gotta fill out the survey, by the time I got the survey done, my burger was cold. Okay, I did this backwards. But honestly, today’s the day for you to get that survey out to them. So they can be able to really have that and get ready. So anyway.

Nathan Teegarden 9:03
Yeah. And so it’s the first email that we send to them. So we’ve made the phone call a text message, the appreciation, and then the email in the workflow that we use. It’s the first email with the survey that they can then you know, fill that out right away. There we go.

Dick Hardy 9:16
Any any parting comments?

Nathan Teegarden 9:18
You know, I think follow up is one of those things to where you really got to have a good system because it can get a bit over overwhelming. And so that’s why you know, those follow up scripts are really be helpful to you. So, make sure you use that tool and then make it your own.

You know, it’s just, it can be a guide to you by think it’ll save you a lot of time and really help you be effective in following up with people. So, it’s one of those things to where you’ve just got to have a good plan in place. And if you can automate it again, Textinchurch is a great way to do that. That will really save you a lot of time and energy.

And then the timing on this is really important. Make sure you get after it. So, today’s the day. Don’t wait. I know you’re probably tired, but use that energy of like, hey, it was a great day excitement. Now let’s get these people plugged in. There we go. There we go.

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.

Recap:

Dick Hardy 9:59
Let me review what Nathan just walked over with us. Number one, reach out to your guests. Number two, appreciate them. Let them know, number three, let them know how to connect. Fourth, let them know why they should come back next week. And number five, send the survey out so you can gather that critical information.

So anyway, Nathan, this has been very, very helpful. Thanks to you for watching. We certainly would love to have you consider jumping into leaders.church, you can do that here at the link in the show notes as well. Wherever you listen or watch your podcast if you go on and rate review Church Tips, we’d be most honored to have you do that.

In fact, we’ve got a review right here. “Appreciate the fresh insight on church issues. Very inspiring.” Well, man, thank you very, very much. It really has been great hanging out with you, Nathan, thank you very much.

Nathan Teegarden 10:50
Absolutely.

Dick Hardy 10:50
Make it a great one today and be blessed.

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Podcast

095 – How to Celebrate the Day after Easter

What’s in this Episode?