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Closing the Back Door

Closing the back door is about deepening the fellowship between the church and its congregation.

A dynamic church is always bringing new people in - trying to move the seekers to visitors, visitors to attendees, and regular attendees to becoming "full time followers of Christ." But a church will not know whether it is being successful if it does not measure people's progress.

To be successful, a church must not only track its attendance, but should also track the number of people who make a public profession of faith, begin to give, attend Bible studies, join one or more small groups, begin to volunteer, and finally learn to tithe. If a church cannot measure these things and encourage their progression, then any one of their attendees or members is more likely to walk out the back door.

The further along a person is on the assimilation funnel, the less likely they will cease to attend. Why? Because the person develops more affinity and personal ownership to that church. To learn more about how to Close the Back Door, please visit www.CloseTheBackDoor.com

So what sort of things do you hear among your staff and congregation? And more importantly, what things are left unsaid?

Below are a few examples of things that might be left unsaid during a church worship service.

Church Staff Member

"I have so much work to do tomorrow to clean up the addresses and duplicate records in our member database before our staff retreat next weekend, it's hard to concentrate on the pastor's message."

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Regular Attendee

"This church is so big. I became a member six weeks ago and I hardly feel like anyone knows or recognizes me."

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Attendee Left Church

"I dropped a card in the offering bag several weeks ago indicating my faith decision, but no one has ever contacted me."

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Church Staff Member

"As a pastor, I know how important it is to follow up with all of our visitors. How can I hold my staff and volunteers accountable for the phone calls?"

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Regular Attendee

"I'm ready to get more involved in the life of my church. I want to know how to find out what volunteer opportunities are available."

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Church Staff Member

"God has blessed us with the volunteers we need to pull off an awesome Vacation Bible School but how can I get all of the background checks completed in time?"

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Regular Attendee

"Now that my children have graduated into the student ministry, I think I would like to try volunteering somewhere else, but I'm not sure exactly what my talents are."

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Attendee Left Church

"I wanted to help out, but wasn't sure what I would be good at. When I offered to volunteer they just stuck me in the nursery because they needed volunteers, but I'm not cut out to do the baby thing. I hate to tell them no, I'll just try another church."

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Regular Attendee

"I've got three kids going to children's camp this summer. Do I have to fill out a form for each child? There's got to be an easier way to register for events."

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Church Staff Member

"I need to purchase all the supplies for the Women's Bible studies this Fall. Is there an easy way to find out how many women are registered?"

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Regular Attendee

"The small group pastor gave me a list of small groups in my area, but I don’t have time to call all the leaders to find out about their groups."

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Lay Leader

"I need an efficient way to contact my small group members for reminders and prayer requests."

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Church Staff Member

"The pastor wants to know as soon as possible the total weekend giving amount."

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Church Staff Member

"The finance committee asked to see the giving trends for the last three summers."

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Church Staff Member

"Our offering always drops in the summer time…is there a more convenient way for our members to give without having to drop the offering envelope in the plate?"

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Regular Attendee

"I already pay all my bills online; it's so easy and convenient. If only I could take care of my tithe while I'm sitting down to pay my bills."

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Regular Attendee

"Checking in my children takes forever. By the time I check in the baby at the nursery and the others into children's church, I miss the first ten minutes of church."

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Regular Attendee

"My husband and I are going through a nasty custody battle. Is there anyway to ensure that I am the only one who can pick up my child?"

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Church Staff Member

"The preschool can be nuts during Sunday morning check-in. We need an easier way to keep track of the volunteer to child ratio in our classrooms rather than running up and down the halls with walkie-talkies."

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Attendee Left Church

"We've missed church for four weeks now because of my son has been sick. I would've thought someone at the church would notice we've been missing since we've been regular attendees for two years now."

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Regular Attendee

"I'm surprised how awesome our services are yet our web site has had the same out-dated information out there for months."

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Attendee Left Church

"A friend referred me to his church's web site. It was awesome, you could do so many things online like register for Bible studies, find a small group, and give online; that's the type of forward thinking church I want to be a part of."

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Church Staff Member

"Our Sunday School teachers want to send out birthday cards to their students. There must be a better, more automated way than using our custom spreadsheet database."

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Church Staff Member

"We have been thinking about starting a Single Parents ministry, but we don't know how many single parent households we have in our church family because the data is spread across so many departments."

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Church Staff Member

"The pastor always has to call the church secretary to get someone's phone number or address. Is there an easier way for him to have access to the most current member database from home?"

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Church Staff Member

"I can't believe I had to rebuild the member database again after it became corrupted this week. We've simply outgrown our capability to handle the volume we now have."

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Regular Attendee

"I'm trying to help the church evaluate church management systems but because the entire church uses Apple Macintosh computers, I can't find a program that will run on them."

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