I believe the secret to successful church planting lies in Course Correction. We try things; they don't work; so we adapt them slightly and try something different. Eventually, we find what works, and we stick with it. These ideas work in different contexts ~ so we can't always share the same ideas with other churches.
Case Study: Visitor Information
We started out trying to collect visitor information with a perforated flap in our bulletins. We'd ask visitors to fill-out their information and return the slip to us. But it never worked. So we tried using a guest book. Walah! Now we collect ~ not just some visitors' information; we collect every visitor's information. Every Sunday. Every time. We course-corrected to figure out how to lower the bar of resistance. For some reason, guest books have a '0' intimidation factor.
Yet to Correct
Whenever I listen to preachers on-line, it's easy to identify biases and cultural expressions that could limit their ability to reach people. I have them too; I just don't know what they are; and I'm probably too afraid to ask. But I pray that God will reveal them to me. Course correction is about finding the most acceptable expression for the surrounding context. When something isn't working; it's because we haven't identified the contextual mis-match.
Our challenge: we're sitting smack-dab in the middle of a family-filled neighborhood. But we haven't reached even one family there. Our children's ministry is sitting idle. [Maybe it's because I use phrases like "smack-dab"] =) ~ Seriously, there's something missing from our understanding of the context... and my team needs to identify the disparity.
ben, how does the guestbook thing work? i'd love to hear about that - we haven't had much luck with our communication cards either.
Posted by: bill streger | August 13, 2005 at 11:52 AM
We bought a guest book at Papyrus and added a place for phone #s and e-mail addresses with a colored pen. We lay it out on the welcome table every Sunday, and our greeters direct visitors to it [we give a small gift to first timers].
Another thing we do is offer name tags on adhesive paper. Every person who attends gets one ~ and we add visitors the following week. At the end of a Sunday morning, we have a stack of remaining name tags that show us exactly who wasn't there...
Posted by: Ben | August 13, 2005 at 12:22 PM
A guest book. That is a new thought. How will that work as you get bigger and you aren't sure who is visiting?
We NEVER could get communication cards filled out until about a month we changed things.
We know take 30 seconds out and the band jams and we have everyone in attendance fill one out every week. I even fill mine out on stage. We explain why we do this in membership class and tell our regulars unless something has changed just put your name and e-mail down. It has worked GREATLY.
Posted by: Gary | August 13, 2005 at 02:54 PM
I'm not sure how size will affect us yet... but I'm sure we'll have to 'course correct' again. It sounds like you've found a great solution.
Posted by: Ben | August 13, 2005 at 05:09 PM