Pastor Steven Furtick

Guest Blogger: Larry Brey, Connections Pastor

Pastor Steven has asked a few of us this week to share some of the strategic things we’ve done this fall to create momentum.  In the connections world that I operate we overhauled two major processes that have produced considerable momentum, our First Time Guest process and our Connections process.

As a church we have consistently created a welcoming experience for our guests, but Pastor Steven challenged us to create an honoring experience.  So this summer we overhauled the First Time Guest process and created a new VIP team.  We changed the look through new black tents, red VIP volunteer t-shirts, tables and implemented new systems to ensure guests are honored.

The VIP process begins when guests drive onto the campus.  They are directed to the best parking spots where our VIP team is waiting to host them as their personal concierge.   We put a great gift in their hands, escort them through the children’s check-in process, by-pass the auditorium lines and put them in the best seats in the auditorium.  To create a personal touch every VIP team member gives their guest a personal Elevation VIP team business card.

The VIP follow-up processes also changed.  Volunteers come to the office on Monday night to make a follow-up phone call to each VIP that visited over the weekend and send them a thank you letter from Pastor Steven.  Each VIP that we speak with Monday night is given another touch on Tuesday night; we have a pizza delivered to their house, on us.

The results have been incredible.  We are not only increasing the number of guests we connect with, but they feel like they are being treated like a VIP.  This honoring process creates a personal connection that makes a big church feel very small.

The second system we overhauled was our Connections process, the system for people to sign up to join a community group or sign up to volunteer.  The overhaul wasn’t a process change, but rather a branding and accessibility change.   We operate with the principal that things should be “easy and obvious.”  We have great systems to connect people, but they were not obvious.  The Connection teams were in a poor location and it was branded as a “do you have questions” with an information feel rather than a “here’s the next step if you’re ready to jump in” feel.  With this overhaul, everything went orange.  We bought a big orange tent, put volunteers in orange t-shirts and put up orange signs that read “ready to start volunteering or join a community group.” We placed the tent right in the middle of the traffic flow.

The process was already easy; the changes just made it obvious…”go to the orange tent that you walk right by on your way out.” The results have been staggering, in the short time we’ve implemented the changes sign ups have more than tripled.  These principals of honor and easy and obvious have produced great results.  As we have grown as a church, we have not arbitrarily changed practices; rather we have gained a greater revelation of our guiding principals to build our practices upon.