Four Shifts For Connecting New People

by Michael Turner

How does your church form connections with new people? The connection challenge varies dramatically based on the size and context of your congregation. For example, in a church of 80-90, identifying, welcoming, and connecting with a new person is a different challenge than in a church where there are 800-900 in worship. Regardless of the context, however, connection always requires intentionality.

Years ago, the church I am privileged to serve alongside had the very common practice of using pew pads as a connection point for new people. At the beginning of the service, we’d invite everyone to pass these registration pads down the rows. Members were invited to note their presence in the member section and “first-time guests” were invited to sign in including their contact information. Then, those “first-time” guests were invited to visit our Welcome Center where we would give them a gift bag with information about our church and a branded coffee mug.

Pretty common practice, right? Thousands of churches across the country have a similar process to try to connect with newcomers. But, as we evaluated the effectiveness of that process, we made some problematic discoveries. First, people were being missed. Not everyone was diligent in passing the pads and sometimes folks simply did not have the opportunity to sign, even if they wanted to. Secondly, after talking with some of our “first-time guests,” we realized that shoving a pew pad in their faces and asking them to sign in was a little off-putting. As a result, many times these folks would would sign their names but not include any contact information for follow up. They felt compelled to write something on the pad, but they were dipping their toes in the water. They were not ready to connect just yet. Our final discovery was that some of our branded coffee mugs were ending up at the Goodwill store down the street, which spoke to just how cherished a gift that really was to folks.

Around the same time we were identifying issues with our process to connect with new people, someone shared a video on the topic. Brady Shearer of Pro Church Tools produces lots of great content, and that content caused us to reimagine our process of connecting with new people. Here are some shifts we have made as a result:

—Shifted away from “first-time guest” language. While better than “first-time visitor,” the reality is that very few people take the step of filling out a connect card their very first time worshiping with a new congregation. In an effort to honor people who are testing the waters of our congregation, we decided to try to remove any pressure for them to connect with us until they are ready. We replace, “If you are a first-time guest,” with, “If you are new to our congregation…” because it creates an invitation to which anyone can respond whether they have been with us for six months or six minutes.

—Shifted away from pew pads to connection cards—No longer do we pass pew pads down rows in worship compelling everyone to sign in (many of our members didn’t do it anyway and we did nothing with the information even if they did). Instead, we created both a digital and physical connect card. Once completed, the connect card triggers and welcome email and, later in the week, a follow up phone call.

—Shifted away from receiving gifts to participating in giving them—No longer do we give away branded coffee mugs or Starbucks gift cards to thank new people for connecting with us. Instead, the welcome email includes a link that we invite people to click where they can then choose from among some of our mission partners. We then make a $5 donation in that person’s honor to that organization. In this way, we invite new people into mission with us in the community from their very first time connecting with us forward. In this way, we hope to reinforce our discipleship culture and our calling to share the love of Christ in the community.

—Shifted toward a discipleship culture. These small changes in our process to connect with new people only serve to reinforce the shift we were already trying to make in our overall church culture, namely a shift away from membership culture and toward discipleship culture.

Three years into these shifts our actual connections with new people have been strengthened, our follow up has been more productive leading to more true connections, and people have expressed appreciation for having been invited into mission in the community.