Toolbox For Faith

One of our guests at worship on Sunday grew up in our congregation but now lives two states away. We had an opportunity to talk during our special evening program and he told me that he and his wife were looking for a church home.

I knew the pastor of a church that I thought was not too far from where he lived and suggested that he visit. I gave him the name of the pastor and the guest gave me the name of a church with a pastor whose first name was the same. Turned out that they had visited that church and they had no follow up from their visit so they had not returned. I then told him how dynamic the pastor was and that from all I knew, the church was doing excellent ministry. I was sure that it must have been some oversight because I felt that this pastor would have followed up. He agreed that they would return and visit again because of my recommendation.

After telling the story to my son, he told me that the church name I shared was not the church of the pastor that I knew and that yes, the pastor that I knew and the pastor of the other church both had the same first name and were located near each other. Oops! I am now getting the email address of the guest so that I can make the correction.

I learned one lesson and had another lesson reinforced. First, I learned I need to know the name of the church as well as the name of the pastor. Second, I learned again that passionate follow up with guests continues to be extremely important for every church. You can do the follow up in a variety of different ways but make sure that you do it! Not doing the follow up is a bigger “oops” than not knowing the name of the church.