01/05/2026
Throughout the year, your church may welcome a variety of new faces through life events, holidays, and personal invitations from family and friends. First-time guests may leave encouraged by a service but can feel uncertain about what comes next.
This is where digital tools can play a vital role. When used intentionally, they can help visitors stay informed and feel personally included with a clear invitation to return. Here are five practical tools that could help you nurture first-time or occasional church visitors into familiar faces within your church community.
1. Update your A Church Near You page – Keep people informed
Your website is often the first place a visitor goes before and after attending a service. One way you can re-engage visitors is to keep them informed on any upcoming events or groups that they may wish to get involved with. A great way to facilitate this is to update your A Church Near You page with clear service times, upcoming events and accurate contact details.
On AChurchNearYou.com there are many different pages ready for each church to fill out to make things clear to newcomers. This includes:
Services and events
News and notices
Who’s who
About the church
Safeguarding
Where to find the church
How to get in touch
Facilities
Social media accounts
To find out more about how to make the most of your AChurchNearYou.com read this blog, check out our series on ACNY on YouTube, or join our next introductory webinar.
2: Use accessibility tools - Make sure no one feels excluded
Going to church for the first time can be daunting, visitors may feel unsure or out of place. A great way to help them feel welcome is by making it easy to participate in worship. Whether through prayer, hymns, or worship songs, simple steps such as displaying lyrics on a screen or providing sheet music can make a significant difference. This not only removes the pressure of “not knowing the words,” but also helps visitors understand the flow of the service if they return.
Adding lyrics, captions, or brief explanations to media shared in church or online can further support this, particularly for those who are new to church, neurodivergent, hard of hearing, or unfamiliar with church culture. When digital content is designed with accessibility in mind, in-person gatherings naturally become more welcoming too.
Many video editing tools, such as CapCut or Canva, make it easy to add captions or lyrics - an important feature whether you’re showing videos during a service, livestreaming, or sharing recorded content online.
To read more about ways to be an accessible church please read our Accessibility blog or our video on adding captions to a video in Canva.
3. Email outreach - Consider a welcome or ‘thank you for joining us’ email
If your visitors have filled out a welcome form or contact information card (giving clear permission to be contacted) it could be a good idea to send them an introductory email.
This could be a simple email welcoming them and thanking them for visiting. You could include some more information about the church, such as any upcoming events / groups, and a short message encouraging them to visit again. Something like “It was lovely to worship with you and we hope to see you again soon! Here is what we have coming up.”
This could be a simple email with links to your website. You can also design an email using Canva. These designs can be imported into MailChimp, Gmail and Outlook. See the image below for an example of an email created in Canva:
For more information on email building on Canva, see here: Email design maker: Design beautiful emails for free | Canva
4: Social media – a window into your church life
For those who have visited church and are considering returning, many will look up the church on social media.
Platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok can show visitors the good things you do all throughout the week. You can use them to share stories, behind the scenes moments, community events and reminders about what’s coming up. Social media gives outsiders a window into what your community is like, and for those who choose to follow you or engage with your posts, it keeps the church present in their daily life, gently nudging them towards a deeper involvement. You can pin your favourite posts to the top of your feeds if you want to feature posts that might be useful to an outsider e.g. a ‘what we do’ highlights Reel, or ‘meet the team’ post.
You can see some examples of social media use from churches over Easter in this blog: Social media highlights from our Lent and Easter theme #DrawNear.
5: QR codes – engagement in services and beyond
Another way to encourage people to engage with your church is with QR codes. QR codes can be used both physically and digitally. They can be printed on a banner or poster, on a notice in church, on orders of service, or leaflets - anything printable, as well as put up on screen or during an online service.
This is especially helpful if you host a lot of events or special services. By putting a QR code on a leaflet or poster, it enables those who may have taken printed material home to scan and access more information about your church at a time that suits them. Or by putting a QR code on a screen during a gathering, those who scan can find the link in the moment, and/or revisit the page later.
QR codes can also be a good way to encourage people in your church to give via a digital platform. If they have enjoyed their time at your church whether for a life event or holiday, they may wish to donate. A QR code allows them to access your giving page and donate regardless of time and location.
For more information about adding and editing a QR code in Canva, you can watch our YouTube tutorial here: How to add and edit a QR code in Canva.
- Eve Reader, Digital Labs Officer
