Church Tool Stack

First-time guest follow-up

The steps

  1. Capture guest info on one connection card

    Every first-time guest fills out the same card — paper at the seat, QR code on the screen for the digital version. Both ask for name, email, and mobile number only. The connections pastor enters paper cards into Planning Center People before he leaves on Sunday. Nothing gets followed up from a sticky note.

  2. Add each guest to the 'First-time guest' list

    In Planning Center People, a list filters on 'first visit date = this week.' Each new guest is added to the list the same day. The list is the trigger for everything downstream — if a guest isn't on the list, nothing else fires.

  3. Send the welcome email Monday morning

    Mailchimp syncs the Planning Center list nightly. A single automation sends one plain-text-style email Monday at 9am: thanks for coming, one paragraph about the church, one question they can reply to. Replies go to the connections pastor's real inbox, not a noreply address.

  4. Send a personal text on day 2

    The connections pastor sends a short text through Clearstream on Tuesday: their name, his name, one invitation to come back. He writes each one himself — about 15 minutes a week at current guest volume. Clearstream keeps the texts off his personal number.

  5. Hand off to a workflow for week two

    Guests who come back a second time move into a Planning Center workflow with three manual steps: a coffee invite, an intro to a group leader, and a 30-day check-in. Each step is assigned to a named person with a due date. The workflow report on Monday shows anything overdue.

The tools

  • Planning Center People ChMS

    Source of truth for guest records and the follow-up list.

    $14/mo

  • Mailchimp Email

    Sends the day-1 welcome email automatically.

    $0 (free tier)

  • Clearstream Texting

    Sends the day-2 text from the connections pastor.

    $29/mo

Why they built it

Guests were falling through the cracks. The church counted cards on Sundays but follow-up depended on whoever remembered, and most first-time guests heard nothing until the next Sunday’s announcements. The connections pastor set one rule: every first-time guest hears from a person within 48 hours. Everything in this workflow exists to make that rule survive a busy week.

The whole setup took one afternoon, mostly deciding what not to automate. The email is automatic because it’s the same for everyone. The text is manual because that’s the message guests reply to — and replies are where second visits start.

What they’d do differently

They’d skip the printed newsletter-style email template they started with. Open rates doubled when they switched to a plain, three-sentence email that looks like it came from a person. They’d also have set up the week-two workflow on day one — for the first six months, second-time guests got the same follow-up as first-time guests, and a few slipped past both lists.