When you’re asking your students to bring a friend to youth group, you are asking them to invite someone into your community. If you treat your guests like someone who’s just there to fill a chair and feed your ego, they may attend your meeting(s) but they’ll never join your community.
You owe your guests two things: Responsibility and Accountability.
As a shepherd, you have a responsibility to your guests pre-meeting, during the meeting and post meeting.
Pre-meeting
- greet your guests
- take your guests information
- introduce your guest around to other students
- make small talk (not 20 questions)
- if you’re playing games, let them know they are welcome to play or just watch
- let them know you’d love to catch up after the meeting
During the Meeting
- make sure you state the point of your meeting (tonight we’re talking about …)
- if the guest did not come with a friend, buddy them up with someone who will hang with them through the meeting.
Post Meeting
- Thank your guest for coming
- Tell them you hope they come back
- Ask them their first impressions
- Ask them if it’s ok to send them a text about upcoming events, etc.
Think about it this way, what if you visited a restaurant and every time you showed up, the menu was different? This would be confusing and irritating, especially if there was something you had you before but was no longer on the menu.
People want to be part of something they can count on.
Radha Agrawal
Being responsible means being accountable for the quality of your program, your follow up and your attitudes, from week to week. Guest can’t matter one week and then next week they’re kicked to the curb.
If you take your guests seriously and, more importantly, take discipleship seriously; you won’t have a problem bringing new guests back.