Easter is almost upon us, and hopefully your halls will be filled with both new and familiar faces. It’s been said by Senior Pastor Central that, “More than likely 25% of all your visitors this year will come on Easter” and even more to digest, “Only 10% of those visitors will come back.” How to engage first-time church visitors on Easter includes these five tips, one for each finger on your hand (easy enough to remember, right?):
- Consider dedicating a page of your website specifically to helping new visitors understand your church’s mission, services, and details that will welcome first-time guests. Make it easy for them to navigate to create a sense of connection with your church.
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Make the “take your next steps” on your website just as easy to locate so you can make the plugging into your church community process simple and direct in order to retain easter visitors .
- Make sure your social media accounts have the address of your church along with specific Easter service times in your bios and/or pinned to the top of your page. If there is additional information your church has that could help someone feel comfortable, add that as well. This lets them know that you:
- update your pages frequently
- have shared the most recent and accurate information
- want them to be set up for success and a great church experience
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Don’t forget to integrate your follow-up plan with your social media posts to gain greater traction.
- Engage first time visitors easter by intentionally welcoming them. Visitor informational cards in the pews and greeting one another during the service are important and have their places, but also don’t forget that first impressions matter. As Christianity Today puts it, we are “To remove any obstacles between Jesus and the people who need Him.” Greeters are critical in this process as they are usually the first and last faces a visitor sees upon setting foot on and departing from your campus, and should be the very best of your volunteers:
- people who love Jesus,
- exude friendliness, and
- genuinely want to help others begin their journey of faith
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Ask the same volunteers to serve a few weeks in a row. This creates and builds a familial sense of church community for visitors and enables the volunteers to greet people by name and to be looking for them. Have you thought about a greeter buddy system? Have one week with the same volunteers who have served a few consecutive weeks and the new group of greeters so there’s a crossover in effect. The seasoned greeters can introduce the next greeter volunteer team to the visitors, thus building community.
- Equip visitors as soon as they walk through the door. Some people simply don’t want to make a fuss or ask for help, and that is okay! Make sure your halls are well lit (you cannot always count on natural light) so that your signage is easily recognizable. The lights create a sense of security, as well as a feeling of cleanliness and organization.
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Do you have signage for your next steps classes, baptism class and Sunday school class rooms, etc? Make sure these are always visible, so returning visitors can recall how straightforward everything was to find and have confidence in navigating their way through your corridors.
- Visitor reception areas and welcome gifts are always great ideas. These should be front and center and not off in a corner somewhere. A reception area should be inviting with coffee and donuts at the very least. People who wander in are taking the first step to be known, so make the most of it! Give them a journal with a handwritten note from the Senior Pastor, or perhaps a small houseplant with a stick tag reminding them of their visit?
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Think about ways for visitors to respond to you. This is critical in answering the question of how do you retain Easter first timers in church? Set the tone to reach out first and provide an easy next step. Following up with each new visitor is vital to the success of your church and here are 3 ways to do so:
- Send out a postcard that reads “We Hope to See You Sunday!” It should arrive a day or two before your next service. This continues the welcome and gives them an opportunity to respond by coming back.
- Text message from someone they met saying they look forward to the next visit. This enables them to text back and connect.
- A personal email with a link to small groups and a way to join.
People come to church because they want to feel closer to God, and they are also seeking fellowship, friendship, and personal connection. Make sure your ministry philosophy includes an emphasis on quality preaching and setting a warm, friendly, accepting atmosphere in the church. Both the more-active and the less-active members are especially looking for these two things on Easter Sunday. We build the church one person at a time through engagement. Jesus did speak to groups of people, and some of the most compelling transformations were through His personal encounter with an individual or a small group. This example is important for us as a way forward for our ministries – finding ways to be more personal. This has to happen through all of us as part of the body of Christ, filled with the joy that comes from knowing we are loved, and overflowing to all generations.
