Law three

The Law of Lasting Contacts

The third law, the law of seven contacts, gives us contacts that keep the back door of the church closed and contacts that encourage visitors to return. It is the law that shows a church what the church should do to assure their return after visitors have come to their first church service. The first law explored what im-pressions people must receive about your church before they even contemplate coming. The second law wrestled with the “touches of love” experienced by visitors to win them during their first visit to your church, and the third law han-dles what to do after that first visit.

Now that people have heard about your church and have made that all-important move of attending, what can a church do to encourage them to return? Is there some way of knowing how many visitors the average church should be able to keep? Is there a method to determine how many visitors a church should have on any given Sunday? Is there such a thing as too many visitors for a church? Well, today’s studies have established the answers to most of these questions.

Church growth studies point out that an average growing church will need to have five percent of their Sunday morning attendance as visitors on a normal Sunday. Too many more than five percent will be very difficult for a church to keep or assimilate. On the other hand, less than five percent in the average com-munity will not be enough visitors to keep up with the normal turnover in the church. However, having the right number of visitors does not mean that the church will automatically retain them.

How many of these visitors should the church be able to reach? Is there a norm? Again church growth explains that only one quarter or twenty-five percent of the visitors in a growing church will be retained. This means the growing church will only keep between one and two percent of its attendance on any given Sun-day. Please do not make the mistake of saying that the growing church will retain two percent a year, for two percent per Sunday is significantly more than two percent per year. For example, if your church had 100 attendees on the first Sun-day and you keep 1% or one visitor a Sunday for each Sunday of the year, you would have gained at least 52 people that year. Your church will have an atten-dance of 152 by the end of that year or a minimum of a 50% increase, not a 2% increase for the year.

One person joining a Sunday translates into 52 people a year in a church starting that year with 100 attendees. This is a lot of visitors for a church to try to assimi-late in one year. How can the average church do this? It is also true that from 6% to 9% of the church attendance will be lost by a church in any given year. The reason for this is that in the average church, anywhere up to 2.5%, will die, any number up to 5%, will transfer to other churches or towns, and approxi-mately 3% will go back into a non-church attendance status. This then only serves to reinforce the need for a church to know how to tie new people into their church in a way sufficient enough to offset this loss.

The third law of seven shows what the average church must do after the visitor has come to the church to bring him back as a regular attendee. This law builds on the second law and assumes the church has been able to acquire the visitor’s name and address. You will use this visitor’s name and address many times over to bring the visitor back to the church. It is the route to spreading the Kingdom of God. Yet overlooking the visitor's name and address happens in many churches. One can only assign those churches who ignore the names and address of visitors to the company of those who “trample on pearls." How can a church care about the Great Commission when they ignore one of the main routes of spreading this Gospel—by using the names and addresses that God sends to them?

On Monday morning the name and address of each visiting family must be given to the pastor. He then writes a personal note on church letterhead thanking the visitors for “obeying God” and attending church--especially in a day when so many are ignoring God’s bidding. The pastor then adds a couple of paragraphs sharing the vision of the church and why it is so obvious that the Lord chose to send them to this church. Be careful not to over- or under-sell the church. Be sure to say enough so the visitor feels good about attending the church and wants to come again, particularly to next Sunday’s great program. The pastor will need to make sure that each Sunday will be a great Sunday.

Second, give the visitor’s name and address to three trained volunteers so that they can telephone the visitor that week. Their task is to make the visitor feel great about obeying God and coming to church. The phone calls must be very short and encouraging. Any answers to question about the church’s beliefs are to be simple and brief. For example, “We believe in the Bible,” is a much better answer than an exposition on the Nicene creed. Complicated questions are given to the church pastor or staff for an immediate (within twenty-four hours) tele-phone response. Do not make the mistake of giving a large number of volunteers the visitor’s phone number. Too many calls in one week become more irritating than encouraging to the visitor.

Third, hand out copies of the visitor’s name and address to six to twelve trained volunteers who will use their own money to write and mail post cards to these visitors. Their goal is to accomplish the same results as the phone calls by writ-ing a short, encouraging note to each visitor. You should send the card during the week after the visitor attended church, or before the next Sunday, for it to be ef-fective. A shut-in in Norfolk, Virginia, faithfully writes visitors every week, thanking God for sending them to her church, even though she is not able to be there herself. In her post card she simply encourages the visitors in their faithful-ness. She does not tell the visitor that she is a shut-in or that she cannot attend. There is the old adage that says, “As you win them, so you keep them.” Some-times the church asks this shut-in if she would also write former visitors to boost the participation of those whose attendance have started to become irregular. She loves to do this because she feels it is one way she, as a senior citizen, can help to build the kingdom of God.

Fourth, pinpoint the visitors address on a map. At the bottom of that map, type in the complete name and address of the visitor. This is to be given to a trained volunteer who will go and see the visitor the Monday after the Sunday the visi-tor attended. This visit must be made as soon after Sunday as possible. Studies show that the longer you wait to see the visitor, the less likely he is to return. If a person comes to your church on Sunday morning, it would yield the best results if he is visited on Sunday afternoon. Many churches, however, have Sunday eve-ning services, so Sunday afternoon visitation becomes difficult, so Monday eve-ning becomes the next best time. Some pastors have erroneously believed that a Saturday visit, just prior to the next Sunday, would be more beneficial, but this has not shown to be the case.

Some may believe that visitations are no longer effective. But note that Mor-mons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are two of the fastest growing sects in the States and they still use visitation as their main avenue for outreach and growth. Visita-tion undertaken by laity visiting laity is better than clergy visiting laity. The rea-son is obvious. People see clergy as one hired to visit, while they perceive the laity as one doing so from a sense of compassion or for a burden. Pastor's, this does not exclude you from visitation. The opposite is true and leads us into the next contact.

The next contact a visitor receives comes two or three weeks after the first visit to the church. The clergy will do this visitation. The pastor shows up on Mon-day nights to send the laity out on their visitation. Then he, along with a deacon or coordinator, calls on new families who have been coming for the past two or three weeks. Contrary to popular opinion, you do not have to make an appoint-ment for the visit unless you are visiting the very elite or “upper-crust” wealthy. The reason for this is that you will never be able to get an appointment at the time when visitation can be the most effective. What is more, once you make an appointment, your visit becomes more of a burden than joy to the visitor since the average household normally wants to do major house cleaning before allow-ing visitors from the church. Since visits are not by appointment, they cannot exceed 15 minutes, unless of course it turns into a soul-winning situation. If a longer call is necessary, make another appointment.

The deacons or staff persons will make the final two contacts within the next two months. They are simply to telephone the visitor to see how involved they have become in the church and, if they haven’t become involved, to encourage them to do so. These contacts will normally encourage the visitor’s return.