What’s in this Episode?

People coming in the front door and going right back out the back door. That’s the pits. They come one week, don’t come the next. How do we fix that? Well, in today’s church Tips Podcast, we’re going to tell you exactly how.

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Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:00
People coming in the front door and going right back out the back door. That’s the pits. They come one week, don’t come the next. How do we fix that? Well, in today’s church Tips Podcast, we’re going to tell you exactly how. Here we go.

I gotta tell you, a number of years ago, I was working at a great church, and that sort of had a lot of good things going on. And a family visited one Sunday, I think it was a, I think it was a dad and a mom and three kids, three boys. So they were like, you know, maybe sophomore through fifth grade or something that kind of age. And so the dad’s name was Bill and I just gave bill a call.

I saw him on Sunday, we chatted a little bit. I said, well, let’s get together. So I had my favorite place I like to go in Des Moines was Mustards. It was a great restaurant. And so go out to Mustards and we’re sitting there just hanging out. And we just really had a delightful time together. I’m thinking, “this is a win. I really connected with this guy.” Months later, they’re at the church, kind of, never got involved. This, this didn’t happen.

So, you know, we established the first touch point after the Sunday, which was good. But the whole issue of getting people connected. That is a huge issue. And one of the things Nathan and I are excited about…

This is Nathan Teegarden, by the way, I probably should have introduced him ahead of time, he serves as the North Campus Pastor and Connections Director at Summit Park Church in the Kansas City area, and has been doing a great job with that. One of the things that we’re excited to announce to you today is that coming next week, we are providing a Connections Track course of training inside of Church University.

Now if you’re not familiar with Church University, you can go to churchuniversity.com and you’ll see in there right now, we’ve got a kid’s ministry track, or preaching track, church audio track that the head of production at Hillsong, UK has done for us and a church board track, which I did. And I’m excited about now, this fifth full course that’s going to be offered in Church University called the Connections Track.

And so Nathan has just kind of a wealth of experience. In fact, if you haven’t watched episodes, 94 and 95, I would encourage you to go back and watch, they’re short and sweet. And Nathan is talking us through various aspects of connections. But what we want to do today is kind of whet your appetite for next week, watch for the release of the Connections track. Talk to us. What is the connections track? What’s kind of overall in 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 2:53
Yeah, well, well, first to start your story that you mentioned at the beginning, unfortunately happens way too often.

Dick Hardy 2:59
You mean, I wasn’t the only one?

Nathan Teegarden 3:02
And really, that is such a critical aspect of people, obviously, in their spiritual life is getting connected in community. Yeah, you know, in relationship, and that’s part of our responsibility as church leaders is to help them take that step. And that’s why I’m really passionate about this course and passionate about what connections means for the church. Because if you’ll do it, if you actually commit to it have a good system and a solid ministry, as it relates to connections man, it will make all the difference. So it’ll make all the difference in the world. So, this is huge. This connections track is going to help your church do just that… connect people, and it’s gonna really take you to the next one.

Dick Hardy 3:39
Yeah, that is so cool. What give us an overview of the kinds of things you’re talking about. Because this is not a one and done deal. I mean, this is a full comprehensive course, that really is going to help you do the kinds of things you want to get done. So, give us an overview of what you’re covering in there.

Nathan Teegarden 3:54
Yeah, absolutely. Well, first, I just wanted to establish the obviously the importance of connections, we talk about that in the first story, but really, just as we move forward, content is everywhere.

You know, people can hear the latest and greatest messages right from their phone. Okay. So there’s, you know, I’m sure you’re a great preacher, you’re awesome. And you prepare those messages, and God uses it for sure. But the thing that’s going to be really important, the thing that you’re going to be able to be distinctive for your people is connection.

That’s something that that this other church, wherever that’s delivering great content can’t do for your people. Yeah, you can connect and create community within your church. So I would encourage everybody, I believe that this is the future that we have got to make sure that we’ve got great connections in churches moving forward. So that again, this is just establishing why this is so critical and important. So in the in the track, I walk you through a connections process.

So we start with… everybody’s a viewer to start so a viewers is defined as somebody that knows about your church, maybe they drive by it, maybe they’ve seen it online. You know, they just know about your Church all the way through the steps along the way through all the way to disciple. I mean ultimately, that’s what we want, right? We want want to make disciples and do what Jesus said.

And through that process is a connections process, people are moving from being a viewer to being a guest, being from being a guest, to an attender and so on all the way until they can be now a spiritual leader in your church. This literally… this track walks you through how you can take people on that process. So it’s, I don’t just stop at like, Okay, get them connected in a small group or a volunteer team. Now, I believe that we want to take them all the way through the process. So it literally walks you through in all these modules.

Dick Hardy 5:37
And I love the fact that you’ve done that. We want people to ultimately become fully devoted followers of Jesus, and to take someone from being a viewer all the way to that point, I mean, some people are gonna get there quickly, others it’s gonna take them a long time. And the church has to be preparing us for that journey.

Nathan Teegarden 5:55
Absolutely.

What else, what else.

Well, and I think to that point, is if you don’t have a clear pathway for that, then you’re just relying on kind of an organic feel. And that can have some results, but not like the results that you can get when you have an established plan. Now, connections can be messy, people can enter at a certain point to where maybe they jump to disciple a little bit quicker, but you need to have a pathway that people generally walk down. And that needs to be a part of your culture.

And it’s not going to be there, unless somebody puts it there, unless you actually build it into it. So first, you got to know how that whole process works, what works best, and then the tools to be able to implement and that is exactly what I cover in this connections track.

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.

Dick Hardy 6:35
Well, you know, that’s one of the things I love about what Nathan has done. In fact, you may have seen where we’ve sent some emails out to some friends. If you’re on our email list, the turnkey process for church guests to have church guests connected to the church, I would strongly encourage we’re going to have it here in the show notes, where you can just download that free to you. And that really describes in an abbreviated form, what’s involved in the entirety of this course.

Now this course has got some oomph to it. What do you got, like 33? 4,5,6? I mean, you got a boatload of videos. Yeah. Discussion guides, bonuses. I mean, when you see it next week, you’re gonna say, oh, my goodness, we got to take a good look at that. I want to mention too on that, that issue of how they can see pastors all over the country, the latest and greatest.

I had, a conversation literally two weeks ago with a friend of mine said, well, listen, you can watch that pastor in California, and he’s a phenomenal communicator. But I will tell you, when you’re in the hospital, yeah, he’s not there. That’s it. And nobody from that church in California. The people who are going to be there are the people in your local church. So that I mean, that, to me, is further rationale for why we got to have this connection.

Nathan Teegarden 7:51
Yeah, absolutely. And well, and one of the things I specifically talked about is a care team in there. So, we dive through how to have that, how to, you know, make sure that you’re doing an effective job, which is just one aspect of connection. So we literally it’s kind of an A to Z, to where, you know, we’re getting the viewer almost like a marketing edge to okay, how do we get them into the church, now that they’re guests, how do we help them take that step to being a regular attender.

Now how do we make them a participator, which means somebody is still kind of consuming the different aspects of the church to being a partner. Now they’re pulling on the oars now, they’re not contributing to being a disciple now they’re helping people get down that connections track.

So I’m really passionate about this. I’m excited about it, I really think that this content is going to really help your church go to the next level and lean into connections, which I believe is the future.

Dick Hardy 8:36
Well, it really is. And I really appreciate it. I gotta tell you, to you folks, I want to say thank you to you Nathan for the effort, the work you’ve gone in to produce this content. I think we’ve got, what, eight modules in there covering a whole range of issues on connections. So go to, it’s not there yet. If you go to churchuniversity.com, you’ll see preaching, kids ministry, board, and audio, but next week, you’re gonna see this fifth course which will be right up front and center, the connections track of Church University.

Any parting shots of what you want to say to the viewers are saying, hey, I gotta keep my eye open for this.

Nathan Teegarden 9:16
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s gonna be like, drinking from a fire hydrant. Yeah, but here’s, here’s the deal. It’s okay. Just consume the consume the content and start implementing some of these things. And you’re gonna see some big impacts as a result of it. You don’t have to have a perfect system. But the idea is not perfection or even excellence. It’s just improvement. Just continue to build on what you have right now. Whatever your connections ministry is, and just continue to take those steps forward, and you’ll see it improve over time and you’ll be able to better connect people

Dick Hardy 9:46
Yeah, that’s absolutely right. Thanks again, Nathan and thank you to you for watching or listening to this podcast. We have certainly loved making that available for you. Keep an eye open for churchuniversity.com next week and the Connections Track and, certainly, we’d love to have you rate and review the Church Tips Podcast wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you feel like you’d like to take a look at the membership of leaders.church, we’d be honored to have you in there as well. So, thanks again to Nathan, thank you for watching. Make it a great one today and be blessed.

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.

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