Easter Sunday is always such an amazing day. I hope you had as wonderful of an Easter service as The Journey did in all of our locations. God truly blessed us with so many gifts. The gifts are the people that walked through our doors for the first time yesterday.

Now we get to show our appreciation to God for entrusting us with these lives. Let’s show God how excited we are to have been given this chance to show ourselves faithful.

In this Blog, there is not enough room to take you into all that we do at The Journey to follow-up with our first time guests, I do hope to simple outline the process to encourage you to take next steps in improving your follow up.

Here is what we are doing in all of our locations today:

POST-EASTER FOLLOW-UP

• 36-Hour Email Response – By this Tuesday, each and every one of our first-time guests should receive an email that (1) thanks them for attending your Easter service and (2) invites them back to your church.

• 96-Hour “Snail Mail” Response – By Thursday afternoon, every guest who provided us with a mailing address receives a personal, handwritten note and a small gift to “wow” them. This will be anything from a Subway card, to a Starbucks gift card to a $5 gas card depending on the location – just something to show God’s love in a practical, unexpected way. We will also include a postcard about the series we kicked off on Easter.

• One-Month Follow-Up Letter – While the initial goal is to get our Easter guests locked in for the current series, sometimes even people with great intentions simply don’t make it back after Easter. Just because we haven’t heard from them in a month doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in returning. So, for these guys, we use the One Month Follow-Up letter to remind them of their experience with our church, we give them a little more information and invite them back one last time.

I hope you find this helpful as you take steps today to be found faithful with the gifts that God has given you.

Nelson

PS – For more details on how we follow-up at The Journey, be sure and check out my Assimilation Seminar which includes all the next steps in the system to see someone move from a first time guest to a member.

Click to Download the Assimilation System.

© Nelson Searcy. All Rights Reserved.

About Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy is an experienced church growth strategist, pastor, church planter and coach, consulting with churches around the world. As founder of Church Leader Insights and the Renegade Pastors Network, he has personally trained more than 3,500 church leaders in over 45 denominations through live events, seminars and monthly coaching. Nelson is also the Founding and Lead Pastor of The Journey Church, with locations across New York City and in Boca Raton, FL. Nelson and his church routinely appear on lists such as “The 50 Most Influential Churches” and “The 25 Most Innovative Leaders.” He is the author of over 100 church growth resources and 18+ books, including The Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Life, Ministry and The Difference Maker: Using Your Everyday Life for Eternal Impact, and At the Cross with the People Who Were There. He and his wife, Kelley, have one son, Alexander.