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Earlier I posted the GuestView policy manual for my home church. A much larger sister church of ours also uses GuestView to manage their guest follow-up ministry. This church used to organize and manage their follow-up by emailing spreadsheets among the team. GuestView has saved them a tremendous amount of time and effort, and now allows the pastoral staff to have more awareness of guest follow-up and guests’ needs.

Two documents capture the core of this church’s follow-up ministry. We are posting these to inspire and encourage you in your own follow-up ministry.

The first document summarizes the mission of the ministry and gives brief steps for following-up with a guest:

Our mission is to build a community of gospel-centered people.

Our 3 “R”s:

• Rejoice: Thank you for being our guest!
• Resource: How can I be a resource for you?
• Request: Do you have any prayer requests? Can I pray for you now?

Our 3 steps:

• Step 1: Recognize evidences of God’s grace in our guests’ lives.
• Step 2: Point out the evidences of God’s grace in their life.
• Step 3: Celebrate the evidences of God’s grace in their life with them.

Their second document provides more detailed suggestions for following up with guests:

Guest follow-up telephone calling ministry

Some Keys to Success:

1. Email all guests with emails first if you don’t have time to call immediately (use a template email and modify the name). In this way, if you don’t have time right away you can make the first attempt (in this case, email) right away. This will elevate pressure on yourself if some days pass and you haven’t called yet. Sometimes the guests will email back and you can start the dialog that way.
2. Be sure to email all praise reports to your team leader (and everybody if you’d like) so we can get the word out and praise God.
3. Of course, email and call any needs that come up for greater care: team leader, ministry leader or pastor.
4. If you get behind in your calls please communicate with another team member (ideally on the next month’s team) or your team leader so that the calls can be reassigned and the guests are followed up with in a timely manner.
5. Sometimes it’s hard to schedule time to call because there is not a set time; don’t be overwhelmed. You might want to plan a time or two and schedule it in. Evening calls work good, Saturday calls work good, you could also call during the day if it’s the only time you have.
6. While talking with guests is best, leaving messages is wonderful. God has used voicemail messages powerfully in this ministry.
7. Don’t get hung up on fear of man (either with the guests, with your team leader or other team members). The key here is to reach out in love to our guests. If you have a time when you are too busy to get to your calls please don’t sit on them (see #4 above) so we can serve with the most excellence as possible.
8. Don’t commit other people’s efforts. If you are referring them to another person (other ministry team leader, pastor, etc.), give the guest the contact information and suggest they contact that person. Then email the leader with the guest contact information and suggest a follow-up with the guest. But don’t commit the other person.
9. We want to deliver more than we promise.