If this is the first post you’ve seen in the “Church Publications” series, check out this post where we give away a newsletter template!
This week, we’ll be giving away a connection card template! Oh yeah! Bring on the FREE!
Now, let’s talk about ‘connection’ cards…
The ‘Why’ Behind the ‘What’
The “connection card” is a nebulous concept. In preparing to redesign my church’s card, I found that many churches us the “CC,” but it is almost certainly used differently in every church. Some churches use their connection card to track attendance, which is what we do, while others use it as a visitor card, which we have as a separate publication. Now, with that bifurcation disclaimed, please understand that there’s still tons of variety in this arena. What we do isn’t the best: it’s not even the best for us! We’re constantly changing this card, hoping to improve each time.
Before we look at the card, let me explain what you’re about to see. Our cards are designed as 3″ by 81/2″ slips of paper, so I’m going cut each side into half (essentially half) to make it easier to present these long images.
Front #1
Some people will surely disagree with what the see on the top of this card, but I have a reason for this: “If this is your first-time please fill out a guest card at Grand Central.” Grand Central is our welcome center, and it’s the home base for our hosts. I don’t mind if a guest fills out a connection card, but I’d rather them go to the welcome center and get the face-to-face interaction with a host. Human interaction goes a long way to helping someone stick at a church.
Front #2
You might wonder why we have a box to check for having your requests shared on our prayer chain. It’s because those who are new to church may be surprised to find that non-pastors were being made aware of their prayer requests. Besides, it’s always better to ask first.
The QR was a nice addition to our cards back in 2010, but now, my pastor almost regrets it because it’s so finicky. Lighting, camera quality, app quality, phone OS—all very annoying factors in whether or not this stupid thing will work each week.
Back #1
The Sermon Response used to include questions specific to the sermon, but we changed that for this open response. Why? We didn’t have time to write the questions one week, and we got a lot more response this way. And there we are! I should add, however, that we have discovered that if the pastor doesn’t mention it, it gets ignored.
Every Wednesday we offer a meal before our mid-week service, so this is a permanent section of the card for us. The Event Sign-Up section is pretty straight forward. We usually try to limit this list to four or five events, depending on space and what events are most pressing.
Back #2
Cornerstone University—as I explain last time—is the collective name for the classes we offer adults on Wednesday’s. This spot is only on the card for two weeks at a time, every two months. I’m not sure what we’d put here next. Maybe we could start a one or two question poll each week? Hmm. The sky’s the limit. But not really. It’s a pretty small space.
If you’d like to use this connection card as a template for your design, you can download it here. (ZIP containing one Pages file, version 5.2.2. I haven’t updated to Yosemite yet.) If you do download the file, please share this post on the social media platform of your choice, as a “thank you.”
Until next time…
Eric Dye says
I love this series. 😀
Andy Inskeep says
Is this sample available in someway to download and edit?
Phil Schneider says
Yes, we link to it in the last paragraph of the post.
Marta says
Can it be in a format for those of us who don’t use a Mac?
Phil Schneider says
I actually have an update for this. Check here https://churchm.ag/free-connection-guest-cards/ and let me know if you want that version.
I can try to convert it to .docx, but I’m not sure how it will look.