Helping Newcomers Connect
Everyone is longing for connection deeper than what social media and even Zoom calls offer us. As people who are created in the image of a relational God, we are all hungry to know others and be known by others. This is one reason why new people show up at your church gatherings. They are searching for a place to belong. Is your church making it easy on them to make friends and find a place to make a difference?
For too many churches the answer is ‘not really’. It is common for churches to make the assumption that if new people want to get connected into the life of a church, they just will. This isn’t always (usually?) the case, however, because we haven’t made ‘how’ plain and simple to new people. They need someone to guide them towards fuller connection within the church family.
This is why we encourage all our church plants to develop a guest engagement strategy, also known as an assimilation strategy, that guides first-time guests toward fuller engagement in the life of the church and its discipleship pathway.
Every church, no matter the size, will benefit from having a clear strategy that helps new people make friends and find ways to make an impact. A common mistake church planters make is focusing all their attention on attracting new people while neglecting to develop and implement a simple process for connecting guests to other people and a purpose. What those planters soon experience is people departing just as quickly as they arrive.
With Easter approaching, now is an opportune time to develop an assimilation strategy for your church, one that will foster a sense of belonging and engagement for newcomers.
Because if newcomers come to your church gatherings but are unable to forge relational connections or find meaningful ways to serve, their time with your church will be short. By creating an assimilation strategy that guides newcomers to fuller connection within the church, you will enhance your stewardship of the people God brings your way.
To gain more insight on the significance of having an assimilation strategy and guidance on how to develop one for your church, check out the resources we’ve highlighted in this month’s newsletter. Enjoy!
-Patrick Bradley, Director of Operations
March 2025 – Content
- An Essential Ingredient
- Assimilation Strategy Template
- Assimilation Strategy Checklist
- Church Planter Boot Camp
An Essential Ingredient
One essential ingredient of every assimilation strategy is collecting contact information from newcomers. As our friend Greg Curtis, creator of Climbing The Assimilayas, says, “She’s not your girlfriend until you have her number, and they’re not your guest until you have their contact info because you can’t even begin to build a relationship with them until you do.” The question we need to wrestle with then is how do we get contact information from newcomers? And how do we do it in a way that’s couched in relationship?
Many churches entice guests to offer up contact information in exchange for a gift, like a church t-shirt or coffee mug. Other churches promise to make a small donation to a community nonprofit when guests share their contact information. Maybe you train and empower your congregants to be the follow-uppers when they bring guests (which, of course, still leaves the question of what to do with walk-ins). Whichever way your church does it, it will really help you to streamline the process for collecting guests’ contact info and then following up with each guest appropriately. How do you do that? Read Brady Shearer’s blogpost The Ultimate Church Guest Follow-Up System for one practical approach.
Assimilation Strategy Template
If the majority of first-times guests aren’t sticking and staying in your church, realize that you’re not alone. Research indicates that most growing churches have a first-time guest retention rate of about 20% – meaning that 1 out of 5 guests actively engage and become part of the church body. If this figure seems low, consider the large number of individuals it represents. Let’s suppose every week 3 newcomers visit your church. If your church retains 20% of these first-time guests, you’d see an annual growth of 31 people.
Unfortunately, the reality is that most US churches fail to retain even 15% of first-time guests. This lack of retention has several undesirable side effects. This begs the question: Why do so few guests stick? It might be a ‘quality’ issue: poor preaching, unsafe children’s ministry environment, or off-key worship. But more likely, the root cause lies in the absence of clear next steps for guests to get connected. We need to make it easier to find a place to belong within our church families.
Could your church benefit from developing a next steps pathway that helps newcomers make new friends and find a place to exercise their gifts? If so, start crafting yours today with the help of our free Assimilation Strategy Template.
Assimilation Strategy Checklist
Many churches have room to grow their efforts in guiding first-time guests to full connection within their church family. A well-structured Assimilation Strategy can be instrumental in this process. How do you go about reviewing your current processes to find that room for improvement? A perfect tool for that is the High-Impact Assimilation System Checklist formulated by Climbing The Assimalayas.
This free 63-point checklist will familiarize you with essential questions you’ll need to answer on your way to developing an effective engagement pathway that helps newcomers become connected, serving members in your church. Don’t keep this checklist to yourself! Recruit a team of people from your church to review it with you and collaborate to create an assimilation strategy that they can then champion and support. Check out the other practical tools, free and paid, on Climbing The Assimalayas.
Church Planting Boot Camp
Ecclesiastes 10:11 tells us, “If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen its edge, then one must exert more strength; however, the advantage of wisdom is that it brings success.” Don’t plant a church without first sharpening your ax and preparing yourself for the work ahead.
At the Passion for Planting Boot Camp, you’ll get wisdom from seasoned church planters and tools to help you plant a healthy, reproducing church. Our new-and-improved Church Planter Boot Camp combines online self-paced study with in-person instruction. Plus we’ll train you in building a custom real-world church planting plan that gets down to the dates, doers and dollars.
Our next boot camp is May 15th-17th outside of Washington, D.C. Sign up now! It’s built for teams, so bring at least one person with you.