Just this week, I finished reading Nelson Searcy and Jennifer Henson’s Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Integrated Members of Your Church. Honestly, I found it to be full of good suggestions and practical advice in order to answer the question of, “now that they’ve visited our church, what do we do?”
I have seen elements of this book used by Real Life Fellowship and The Connection Church. I can speak from experience when I say that this is a solid instruction manual for partnering with God to draw first-time visitors back to the church.
Some of my church-planting brethren may not like this book, arguing that coercing guests to returning shouldn’t be the goal of the church. Let me say this: that is not the goal, but it is a goal.
How can we continue to beg God to draw people to himself through the church if we are not willing to do whatever it takes (short of sin) in order to partner with him and create communities that attract them back?
We know this instinctively. We understand the need for follow-up. This book is simply a practical book to help us to that better.
What do you do in order to follow up on your first-time guests?
