Baptist visitation night

Many SBC Churches have begun the "F.A.I.T.H." Program http://www.lifeway.com/n/Product-Family/FAITH-Evangelism which was developed by the denizens of FBC downtown Daytona....It's an excellent and well designed out-reach / visitation strategy. Honestly, you should encourage your church to look into it...Around here, I have noticed a sort of "re-surrgence" I guess of "visitation" type programs in the last 10-15 years or so.

The problem with most "visitation" programs is that they were and often are, not well organized and approximately 5 people out of a 300-member Church will regularly participate.

Here's an old thread I found on BB:
http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=55990

My opinion....If you're going to have some form of "Visitation Program" this one is very well designed. It incorporates discipleship and training WITH visiting....It also does and excellent job of keeping people involved in it. It is done in a series of 16-week "semesters", and the experience I have had is that about 100% of people who sign up WILL stay active and faithful for at least that 16-week period. Later, if they want to wuss-out, they will, but new people become involved with the next "semester" your Church does.

I have my dislikes with it, it isn't perfect...and I absolutely loathe the strategy they use for "cold-calling" but it's at least worth a look-see. I've participated in about 90 weeks of it and been able to lead about 6 people to Christ.

 

I put our visits out on Sunday's and encourage folks to team up with someone in the church, be it spouse or friend, to make the visit at their convience throughout the week. We haven't been doing this very long, but I think I'm getting about the same response as when we had a set night for visitation (at first it was Thursday & then it was Wednesday before service). Some other churches in the area are having better "success" with Saturday morning (10:30 or so) visitation.

 

I attend a large SBC and I go out every Monday with our Associate Pastor who is also my mentor.

 

I can only speak for our church, we go out on Saturday mornings. The idea behind that is that if you do get a commitment to attend, it is less likely they will forget it before Sunday. Our problem is not the frequency, but the number of members who show up. It averages between four and six. We go out door to door in twos. We have had some success, but it is a lot of work and takes lots of patience.

 

Gilbert?? :laugh: Who's that?

It's not really an "either/or"...fundamentally, the visiting itself is essentially door-to-door...but you are always targeting "leads"... There is a list generated of specific individuals you visit, and not so much mere cold-calling. The strategy is married to the Sunday School program. Sunday School classes or peer groups make up each team, and they specifically visit other people in their peer group, thus, your class of 30-somethings will have a team of people visiting other 30-somethings...
So, whenever a visitor fills in that little visitor's card and puts it in the offering-plate...it goes STRAIGHT to the box of that visitor's peer group, and they will be the victims of a FAITH team visit on Tuesday (or whatever day you do it).

The idea is that your peer-group invites their peers to their Sunday-School class or group, and also is trained to share the gospel with them if appropriate.

The training is intensive (for this post-modern intellectually lazy era anyway).
Each meeting begins with an hour-long training from a curriculum, and then there is an hour and a half or so of visiting.
For every "semester" or 16-week cycle, there is a curriculum and it begins with the first semester which is basically sharing the gospel and learning the visiting strategy,
The second semester is a different curriculum
the Third semester you would be involved in deals with answering questions and criticisms and defending the faith from objections...etc...
The training is very specific and pointed.
Generally, your "team" would be comprised of at least one person who has been through the first semester already and are "qualified" to lead the visit. That person is teamed up with others who are new to the program and are still learning the basic strategy...

Give it a look!!!
It takes some serious committment on the part of the Church leadership. It isn't something that works if the Church is only half-hearted about it....You have to be "all-in" or there is nothing-doing.

For more specific info and detailed answers, you could call the staff of FBC Downtown Daytona [Fla.] (who designed the program)...they give seminars where they train the Pastoral and leadership staff how the strategy works. I have no doubt they would be happy to help you out with it and answer any questions you have about it:thumbsup:

Actually, I was a team leader and teacher in it for some years too, so I would be happy to share more with you about it if you'd like:wavey: Just shoot me a PM if you're interested...........My name is Mark.