This is Chapter 11 from The Pastor’s Guide to Growing a Christlike Church . Adam is pastor of Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS. My thoughts - Let’s keep it simple but purposeful pastors.
FREQUENTLY PEOPLE ASK ME WHAT WE DID WHEN OUR CHURCH
was just starting that was most important to its later growth and success.
I quickly answer by mentioning five things: (1) prayer, (2) developing
and communicating our values and vision, (3) marketing, (4) preaching,
and (5) effectively following up on new visitors. In this article I
would like to focus on No. 5—the pastor’s role in effective evangelistic
follow-up. But first let me tell you a story.
When I was in college, I sold women’s shoes for an upscale department
store to pay my tuition. There were just two of us selling these
shoes—Pearl Golden and me. Pearl was in her 60s and was a kind Christian
woman. She had been selling women’s shoes in this department for
years. She was not the epitome of fashion—she wore only the most comfortable
of shoes. She looked more like a grandmother than a fashion
consultant, but when it came to selling shoes, she was outstanding.
On her day off I would stand in the shoe department, and women
would walk in, look around, and then ask, “Is Pearl here today?” I would
say, “No, today is her day off, but I would love to help you.” I would inevitably
hear the same words, “Oh, that’s OK, I’ll come back tomorrow
when Pearl is back.” As a poor college student working on commission,
I hated those words. After several months of trying to understand why
so many women insisted on having Pearl help them, I finally asked her,
“Pearl, what is your secret?” She said, “Every time I sell a pair of shoes,
after the customer leaves, I sit down and write a personal thank-you
note to them.” Over the years this small effort had paid huge dividends,
and Pearl had built a base of very loyal customers.
By the time I took my first youth director’s position, at a small
church in Bixby, Oklahoma, I had already adopted and been practicing
Pearl’s art of shoe-selling follow-up. Now working with teens, I applied
what I had learned. Every time a young person would visit our youth fellowship,
I would get his or her name and address. The next day after
school I would drop by the teen’s home and leave a small gift and a note
thanking the teen for visiting our youth program. The youth group grew
from 13 kids on my first Sunday to 36 kids 11 months later when I graduated
from college.
I used this same strategy at New World United Methodist Church
in Dallas, where I served as youth director while in seminary. In just
over three years, attendance grew almost tenfold. Something similar
happened in my first pastoral appointment out of seminary, where I
served as an associate pastor at Central United Methodist Church—a
150-year-old congregation in the heart of Kansas City. A team of
laypeople and I divided up the altar flowers each week and delivered
them to our first-time visitors on Sunday afternoon. In about two years
this church saw growth in both membership and worship attendance at
a rate it had not seen in 20 years.
So when my wife and I started the United Methodist Church of
the Resurrection in 1990, I knew that follow-up would be an important
part of our plans. We started out by delivering coffee mugs with the
church’s name on them to each first-time visitor. Back then only a few
churches in the United States were doing this—today this is fairly commonplace.
Each Sunday during worship we would pass attendance notebooks
down the rows and draw attention to them periodically during the service.
We would ask the congregants to look at what people wrote so
they could identify and welcome their seatmates by name after the service
(this activity dramatically increased the number of persons actually
leaving their names and addresses). After worship was over, I would
look in the notebooks for every first-time visitor and write his or her
name and address on a visitation card. Later, after lunch, I would drop
by, unannounced, for a doorstep visit.
These visits were always very short. When the individual came to
the door, he or she often looked at me with an expression that said, “I
knew I shouldn’t have left my name and address!” But I would quickly
put the person at ease, saying, “I don’t want to come in; I just wanted to
drop by for a moment to give you this coffee mug from our church—it is
a sign of our welcome. I also wanted you to know how glad we are that
you visited this morning. We really hope you come back!” After this I
would ask if the person had any questions about the church. If not, I
would say, “Again, thank you for visiting this morning. I hope to see you
next Sunday!” The average visit took just under four minutes. But this
was an important four minutes.
Because I had written the name of the individual down on the visitor
card and actually stopped by his or her home for a visit, I was able to
recall that person’s name later at the next worship service. When I
could call a person walking into worship by name, that person was
hooked! To remember someone’s name communicates that you think he
or she is important. Recently I walked into a restaurant and the waitress
called me by name, and as I sat down, she brought me my favorite soft
drink. This small act made me feel as if I was a special customer, and it
made me want to return again and again. Remembering people’s names
really does make a difference.
I’ve known pastors who send letters and make telephone calls to
new visitors, and I think this is good. But a doorstep visit allows you to
get to know your visitors and communicates to them a level of welcome
that they will not receive in a note or telephone call. During the first
four years of our church’s existence I delivered 800 coffee mugs to first-
time visitors. In the early years this took less than an hour of my time
each week—but it was an incredibly important hour.
If the truth were known, most of us pastors are filled with dread at
the thought of doing this. I would become anxious at first when I would
deliver the mugs. I would secretly hope the people weren’t home so I
could just leave them a note in the mug by their door. But once I got in
the habit of doing it, I came to enjoy it. It was a blessing to me. I no
longer do this ministry in our church. Today we have a team of dedicated
laypeople who deliver between 50 and 100 coffee mugs to first-time
visitors each week. We call these visitors our “Methodist Muggers.”
They do a fabulous job. When your church reaches a certain size, you
will need to turn this over to laypeople. But as long as a pastor can keep
up with this on his or her own, I believe it to be a valuable part of developing
dynamic congregations and effectively reaching the
unchurched.
What I’ve described was the first prong of our two-pronged approach
to following up on new visitors. The second would happen three
weeks after the first visit. Each week I would track a visitor’s attendance.
On the third visit I would phone the visitor and say, “Hello, this is
Adam Hamilton from the Church of the Resurrection. I am so excited
that you’ve been worshiping with us each week! One of my aims is to
get to know all of the people who worship with us on the weekend, and
I was wondering if I could come by one night this week to get to know
you better and answer any questions you have about the church. I won’t
stay more than 45 minutes, as I’ll have another visit after yours. Would
that be OK?”
Notice I did not ask the person if he or she wanted me to come
over. If I had, the person would probably say no so as not to inconvenience
me or take time away from my family. But because I expressed a
desire to come over, in essence invited myself, the person would probably
not turn me down, and very few did.
When I arrived for this visit, I would thank the person again for allowing
me to do this, and then I would ask questions about his or her
life. I found that most people enjoyed talking about themselves and
telling their stories, but in today’s world, no one wants to listen. When I
would listen and express interest, this was a blessing to the people I
would meet and to me. It helped me to connect with them and to love
them.
After hearing the person’s story, I would ask if it was OK if I told
mine. I would then share a brief summary of my life, including my conversion
experience. I did not do this to preach or especially witness to
the person but just to share my story, including the most important part
of my life—my walk with Christ.
Before I left, I would share with the person a bit of the vision of our
church, and our expectations for membership (for more on this see my
book Leading Beyond the Walls, Abingdon Press, 2002). Finally I would
tell how honored I would be to be the person’s pastor. I would end our
time together by asking if I could pray for the person and his or her family.
This was a unique opportunity in that most unchurched people have
never had another adult pray aloud with them. Because I had heard the
person’s story, I knew a bit about what I ought to be praying. I cannot
tell you the number of times I would look up at the end of this prayer
and see tears streaming down the face of the one for whom I was praying.
In that moment of prayer, I had become his or her pastor.
Of the 400 plus households I visited in this way during those early
years of our church’s history, 399 of them joined the church. But more
than simply becoming new members, these persons became very supportive
of my leadership and of the church. I had taken the time to get
to know them, to actually come to their homes (twice—the coffee mug
visit and the in-home visit), to hear their stories, and to pray with them.
This was a small investment in their lives that paid tremendous dividends
in my ministry and for the church.
One thing you will notice—my aim on the second visit was not to
lead them to Christ that night. If they wished to commit their lives to
Christ, I would gladly lead them in prayer to do so. But most of our new
visitors were not at the point where they were ready to do this. Instead I
would be gently leading them toward Christ by sharing my faith story,
praying with them, and inviting them to continue to be actively involved
in the church. I was developing a relationship with them so I
could continue to lead and disciple them in the weeks and months
ahead in worship. Nearly all these persons ultimately did commit their
lives to Christ. But had I pressured them to make this decision on the
night of my visit, I would have pushed them away from Christ rather
than gently leading them to Him.
Today committed laypeople deliver our coffee mugs, and with over
100 adults joining the church each month, I no longer visit each family
in their home. We have a monthly gathering, our “Coffee with the Pastors,”
during which we try to re-create some of the same connection we
had with our visitors in those early years. In this way we continue to
pursue the same principles we used at the start. But this does not begin
to have the same impact as the in-home pastoral visits did. I am convinced
that the doorstep visits and the in-home visits were foundational
for all that God would do through our church in the years ahead.
For Further Reading
Many of the leadership books I have most enjoyed in the last few
years were not written specifically for churches. Here are a few of my favorites.
Collins, Jim. Good to Great. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
Frankl, Viktor. Man’s Search for Meaning. New York: Pocket Books, 1946.
Johnson, C. Ray. CEO Logic. Franklin Lakes, N.J.: Career Press, 1998.
Kotter, John. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
Matt - Solutions
It’ll be here before you know it! Actually it is here! Valentines Day is upon us and you need some worship/liturgy help in the area of lighthearted drama sketches. Well…you know what I’m going to say…yep…I’ve got some hints for you. I’m so predictable.
festivities if you are a pastor your mind is somewhat down the road and into the new year. No doubt you are considering in prayer or in action the themes, missional purposes, and sermon ideas of the new year. I hope that today’s entry can be of some help and insight for consideration.
