fresh & practical ideas for your journey to the summit
Designing an Effective First-Time Guest Follow-Up Process for Your Church
We may not think of it this way, but when someone walks through your church doors for the first time and shares their contact information with you, they’re extending an invitation for relationship. How you respond in those critical first days and weeks can determine whether they become part of your church family or remain a one-time visitor, disengaged by your response. A thoughtful follow-up process doesn’t just happen—it requires intentional design around six key considerations that will shape every interaction with your guests.
How to Ghost your Christmas Volunteers
Christmas is magical.
Lights. Music. Nostalgia. Cinnamon everywhere.
And also… your single biggest volunteer recruitment moment of the entire year.
Which means this is the perfect season to talk about how to absolutely, completely, spectacularly fumble the ball with your one-time Christmas volunteers.
The One Habit That Predicts Whether Guests Will Stick Around
If I could give you one metric to measure the health of your church’s follow-up, it wouldn’t be attendance or baptisms.
It wouldn’t be small-group sign-ups or volunteer counts, either.
This one behavior is what I call a keystone habit, because if you can pull it off… it proves nearly everything else underneath your ministry is aligned and healthy.
![Transform Data into Discipleship [Guest Post]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/551d997ee4b0277cf3856ee6/1708357923942-MDXFL1VR5NUZZIJ4H6QS/image-asset.jpeg)
Transform Data into Discipleship [Guest Post]
Gut feelings and random stories might help us evaluate our ministries, but it’s data that must guide us. And while it’s one thing to gather data… the real question is how we’re using it to make informed, strategic, and personal decisions.
Find out how to transform data into discipleship with this guest post and video interview with Ronee de Leon.
8 ways to maintain attendance during your multi-week assimilation program
There is nothing that can deflate a Sherpa leader (one who leads guest on the climb to connect with your church) quite like these 2 things:
An empty room.
A full room missing guests who attended last week.
That’s why when I am talking to leaders who want to see their guests go the distance and get connected to their church, I always share these 8 attrition busting practices I have learned over the years.
The 3-point cure for process breakdown (3 of 3)
There are 3 cures for process breakdown that will empower your church's assimilation strategy. Each of them grants exponential growth to your process of connecting guests to the life of your church. Read on to identify them before Christmas hits, and make a New Year's Resolution to apply them more fully by Easter.
The 4 Symptoms of Silo Syndrome (2 of 3)
There is a condition or better put, a "pseudo-structure" that breaks down healthy processes in churches all across the world right now. Find out what this condition is and the 4 symptoms that can reveal whether your church has it or not.
3 causes for process breakdown in your church (1 of 3)
The human body is equipped to do some remarkable things, especially when one of it's processes get's interrupted. The Body of Christ is equipped to do some remarkable things as well when processes and systems get disrupted. Not all these things are good, especially if they last for too long. Discover what they are and the 3 causes for process breakdown in this first of a 3 part series on causes and cures of process problems in your church.
The Power of Process (2 of 2)
A process is a set of interrelated activities that interact to achieve a result.
In this post I want to reveal a volunteer placement process from the pages of the New Testament and to share the 2 factors exposed there that must be present if a process is going to be healthy.
The Power of Process (1 of 2)
Processes in ministry—not something we naturally enjoy thinking about. We would rather take them for granted, but that's exactly what a good process does. A good process becomes something you can take for granted. Processes are essential to the health of any church and they are the spine of any assimilation ministry.