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December 13, 2010
Having a good follow-up/assimilation strategy in place prior to your launch, is one of the most significant and important jobs to tackle. Yet, in all the church planting books on the market few, if any, address this enormous task. Failure to have this system in place will kill your momentum. Too often church planters allow their pride to get in the way of creating proper measures to re-invite first-time guests. What do we mean by that? Let’s just call it the “Field of Dreams” syndrome: “If I build it, and put the best of everything in place, everyone will flock to my doors.” Every planter feels that his or her church is the best thing in the world. Their band is second-to-none, the children’s ministry is the best thing since sliced bread, and their preaching skills, well, enough said. That kind of self-confidence is both a blessing and a curse. The very characteristic that drives them to launch a new work can also blind-side them and cause them to be so over-confident, they don’t follow-up properly.
Understand that people don’t come through your doors be accident. Everyone who comes to your church was drawn there by the power of the Christ. Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him…” Everyone who comes into the doors of your church is dealing with something. They are carrying baggage and searching for answers. First-time guests are “extraordinary gifts full of unparalleled potential” and Jesus has led them to you so make the “most of every opportunity” and think strategically.
How important is follow-up for the first-time guest? “A church must keep about 16 percent of its first-time guest to experience a minimal growth rate of 5 percent each year. Rapidly growing churches keep between 25 and 30 percent of their first-time guests. Declining churches keep only about 5 to 8 percent of their first-time guests…A church keeps about 85 percent of its guests who comeback for a second visit the week after their first visit.” Let that sink in a minute. Your new church needs to keep at least 16 percent of your guest to experience a slow and steady growth rate. The better you do at follow-up, the greater potential you have for retaining that first-timer. If by some chance you are able to bring them back for a second week, you will have an 85 percent chance of incorporating them into the body of the church.
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