The huge missional value of keeping touch with Life Events contacts

INDEPENDENT RESEARCH SHOWS THAT 90% of families who have a Life Event service expect their church to keep in touch with them afterwards, yet few churches actually do.

The good news is that the vast majority of families are happy for the Church to keep in touch and would welcome that contact.

The research findings also showed us: if we keep in touch with people there is a chance that they will take the next step on a journey of engagement with the Church, a journey of discovering faith in God through Jesus Christ and a place with God’s people.

So ongoing contact can be the bridge from mission to discipleship, the bridge from that first experience to life-changing encounters. If we don’t keep in touch, that opportunity may be lost forever.

And, keeping in touch with Life Events contacts is especially effective because the church where the service took place will always be close to their hearts and strong in their memories.

Easy does it

Continued invitation to experience the love and hospitality of the church family need not be onerous – and it doesn’t mean personally visiting people, or arranging coffee catch-ups all the time. We can still be ‘present’ in people’s lives through simple, light-touch contact.

You might like to think of the list below as a menu of ideas for how to keep in touch. Browse and see which ideas seem to fit well in your own situation. You need not do everything, but select and practice what you think is achievable and sustainable in your parish.

• Keeping in touch by email – a blog by the Revd Bryony Taylor which explains how to set up a regular e-newsletter on Mailchimp
• How we grew our toddler numbers through doing baptism follow-up – read this story about how e-newsletters and other follow-up techniques with baptism families had an impact on the growth of one parish’s children’s ministry.
• Set up a Facebook page, and let them know it exists. Use it to post information. Use the Church of England’s Digital Labs for lots of learning opportunities for being present as a church on social media.
• Keep your church website up to date with what is going on with clear information on how to find the church and how to get in touch, preferably with a named person to contact.
• Keep in touch through the seasons – there are loads of opportunities in our annual cycle of festivals and other occasions for follow-up and invitation. You can even send cards/postcards to invite people, either in the post or via email.
• Send cards to mark their special times such as anniversaries or birthdays. For a system that helps you manage contacts and remind you about special dates, see the lifeeventsdiary.org – it helps you organise reminders for keeping in touch and much more for all your Life Events services admin.