Church Life
A first impressions survey of newcomers to church
I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject of welcoming recently – as regular readers of Communicate Jesus would know! (Don’t forget about the welcoming roundtable in Sydney next month!)
One book that I’ve found particularly helpful is Fusion: Turning first-time guests into fully engaged members of your church by Nelson Searcy. There’s a lot of great advice in this book that I’ve been thinking through how to apply.
One of the suggested applications is a survey of newcomers, sent out in the days after their first visit. Searcy suggests the following questions:
- What did you notice first?
- What did you like best?
- What was your overall impression?
- How can we pray with you?
- Name
- Email Address
I also noticed The Village Church running a similar survey on their website.
I decided to launch this at Church by the Bridge – below is a snapshot, and you can view online here. We received our first entry last week!
There are numerous benefits to this survey. Here’s five:
- Show people that you care about the experience that they have.
- See how church is perceived through the eyes of someone who is new.
- Learn what your church is doing well – how the church and welcome teams can be encouraged.
- Discover what obstacles exist to new people feeling welcomed.
- Understand (over time) whether your church is welcoming or not (don’t just rely on gut feel!).

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