Taking Names by Anne Coffman

By Anne Coffman

I am going to lay it on the line: The most important task in growing a church is to get the names of visitors and then follow up with them.

In The Church Growth Ratio Book, Win Arn tells us that in a church of one hundred in worship there should five first time visitors every week and that if you are doing your follow up well, you can expect that 1.25 of those visitors will be fully assimilated into your church one year after their first visit. That means that after one year you will have a church of 165 fully dedicated people in worship, plus the others who are in process! Now that is impressive growth!

But growth does not happen unless you get the names of visitors and then follow up with them.

I know, I know … in a perfect world, we would not have to do this because every one of your church members would be so excited about their faith that everyone who met them would want to come to your church. And then each individual member would follow up on their friends in a natural way, connecting them with groups and individuals in the church. Many evangelism and church growth programs are based on this theory, but they don’t take into account that we do not live in a perfect world. So, the most important task in growing a church is to get the names of visitors and then follow up with them.

Okay – how do you get the names? The methods I present here all have their pluses and minuses. If you know of better variations of these or different methods altogether please email me – we're always on the lookout for new and better ways to get the names of their visitors.

 In Worship Methods:

Moments for Visitor Recognition are too common and almost always doomed to fail. These are routines like putting special nametags on visitors, making them stand up in worship, applauding them, calling them to the front, publically giving them gifts ( although gifts are good, I will talk more about that later).

A clergy friend told me about one church she visited where the congregation gathered around the visitors and sang a special welcome song to them. My friend found it meaningful – I would have found it deeply embarrassing and would have never gone to that church again.

As church attendance drifts farther away from being the norm in North American life, visitors do not welcome being recognized publically. The introverted ones never liked it. Remember, your goal is to help the visitor to feel comfortable, not humiliated or embarrassed.

Good Visitor Recognition can occur when churches choose to incorporate a time of hospitality into their worship service. Churches that do this have a coffee bar and refreshments in the back or side of their worship space. During worship there is a break time when every body goes to get a cup of coffee. Trained hosts help newbies get their lattes and espressos and bring them to meet and connect with the pastor. In this, as is true in other hospitality times, the pastor should have a trained volunteer who will subtly take notes of names and situations of visitors, so that follow-up can be more effective.

Pew Pads, Pew Cards, or the Registration of Attendance: Many churches once had a routine of pew pads or pew cards, sometimes called the Registration of Attendance. At some point in the service the worship leader would remind everyone to fill out the pew pad and “pass it on down the pew and then pass it back and be sure to greet anyone whose name you see." If it was pew card, then everyone was asked to fill it out and place it in the offering plate.

This was great if it was used correctly because each pew pad or card could be gone over after the service and used to get the names of visitors and track member attendance. While this may still work in some churches in some parts of North America, I would not recommend starting a pew pad routine now.

If you use this method and it is working for you - be sure to supplement it with other ways of getting names. I am willing to bet that your church already has visitors who refuse to sign the pew pad or card or sign a fake name if they do (yes - it happens) Even faithful church people don’t like filling out these and won’t do it, and if they won’t, how can you expect visitors to?

A more effective version of the Pew Pad or Card is the Prayer Request Card. When I have used them, the cards are in each worship bulletin and they have space for a prayer request, then a box to mark if you wish to speak to the pastor and space for name, address, and email.

This method is most effective if it is done as part of the worship service. It works like this: at the beginning of prayer time (however you do that in your church), the pastor explains that each person, including him or her, will be filling out a prayer request card and that after church each request will be prayed for by the pastor and the prayer team, deacons, Stephen Ministers, etc. The pastor can also emphasize that there no need to write down your name in order to submit your prayer request.

Then after people have had time to fill out their cards, an usher collects them and brings them to the pastor. In churches I have served, we have gotten close to 100 percent participation filling out the prayer cards, and, interestingly, almost 90 percent of our visitors choose to put their names down on the prayer request cards. It is great way to get names and to be able to connect in profound ways almost immediately with visitors.

Before/After Worship Methods:

Many churches have a Welcome Booth or Table in a prominent place in the back of the worship space or near the refreshment area. This will have friendly people hosting and offer packets of information about the church and maybe a small gift like a DVD of the worship service, or a mug with a logo of the church. Here the visitor can be asked to sign his/her name, address, and email so that they can receive more information from the church.

All churches should have some form of a welcome booth, but don’t rely on it to get the names of all the visitors. The only visitors who will give their information at the welcome booth are the ones who understand the “churchy system” and are willing to enter into it. This is probably a relatively small number. However, the number of names you get will be increased by having faithful, gifted, and trained volunteers.

These volunteers need to know that today many first time visitors are unfamiliar with churchy ways. They are people whose lives are falling apart and who feel as if they have reached the end of their rope. They are finally willing to try God, hoping that He has something better for them. But they are feeling kind of skittish. They won’t see how being on the church mailing list is going to help them right now. A good volunteer can quickly connect a needy visitor with a ministry or small group leader that can spend meaningful time with them.

I can describe best faithful, gifted and trained volunteers by telling you about Charlie and Barbara.

Charlie connected with me in the coffee hour of one of the most inhospitable churches I have ever attended. The room was too big, the coffee was bad, the cream jugs were empty and the people stood in tight, closed circles. Except for this one guy, who came up to me with a big smile and said “Hi, I’m Charlie. I don’t think we’ve met.” Within minutes, (I’m still not sure how) Charlie had found out where I lived, where I grew up, why I was there and had introduced me to three people. I ended up worshiping at that church for several years! I thought I knew all the tricks to deflect church greeters but Charlie got all my information, connected me with others, and I loved it!

Charlie has a gift, but it is not a rare one. Learn to spot the extroverted people in your church who genuinely like to meet new people, and train them to use their ability to make church visitors feel welcome and comfortable.

Barbara has a slightly different gift than Charlie. When we started an off-site worship service for high school students, Barbara was the person who stayed outside and hung out with the kids who were nervous about coming into worship. She is warm, sensitive, and nurturing, and these kids felt safe with her. She knew all their names, listened to whatever they wanted to talk about, and helped them to feel confident and comfortable enough to make the transition into actually going into the worship service.

You have at least one person like Barbara in your church, and with his or her help you can train others. A Barbara is the perfect person to connect with those visitors who come to church but just want to drop their kids off at Youth Group, or Christmas Pageant rehearsal.

Getting the names of visitors is not rocket science and it doesn’t even cost that much money. All it needs is focus and sensitivity.

Let’s repeat it again, together: The most important task in growing a church is to get the names of visitors and then follow up with them.