Closing the Back Door

Directors and Leaders, please understand the importance
of this program. It is so hard to get church members to
come to our churches and stay long- term without quitting.
Most churches do a lot of work to get visitors and are very
focused on the front door of the church. But it is the back
door that costs our church growth. It’s hard work to keep
clean-living Christians from quitting church.
At your RU, however, you have an even tougher job. You
are trying to teach people that are bound by addiction and
often unchurched to remain faithful to your class, and that
they need to be faithful in church. Now, that’s diffi cult!
Yet, at North Love in Rockford, IL, we are seeing fi fty
new members per year on average join our church from
RU. I know of many chapters that are seeing twenty-fi ve
or more adult students, plus kids, join their churches every
year. How is it being done?
It is very simple, but also very systematic: I watch the
back door. The tool that God has designed for this purpose
and given to RU is very simple: The 2-3-4 plan and the 300
Club. First, let us review the method and the management
of your people using the 2-3-4 plan.
The 2-3-4 plan is a strategic way of standing blameless
before God in the loss of a student. As leaders, God is
giving each of us followers. Some more, some less. Our
responsibility extends not only to our students as a whole,
but also to each one individually. We have structured
this ministry so that the directors of the chapters are the
leaders of the leaders. To this end, you are responsible not
only to implement the 2-3-4 plan in your chapter, but also
to inspect what you expect! I would NEVER be able to
do the 2-3-4 plan by myself or make sure that it is being
done, if I did not inspect it EVERY SINGLE WEEK in
our chapter.
You see, your RU leaders need to take ownership of
their followers (your chapter’s students). Don’t fall for
the lie that if your leaders are forced to “work during
the week to keep students active”, that the leaders will
quit your RU program. That’s a lie. If they quit, they
are not leaders anyway. I have seen it proven over and
over again: High standards equal low turnover!!! If you
are losing leaders, it’s because your expectations of them
are not high enough. I am not talking about dress or hair
standards, I am referring to the standard of performance
that each leader must maintain in order to be effective. If
they will not do the work, do not let them touch the fruit!
They won’t value it, appreciate it, or protect it. They
will only fl aunt it and take advantage of it for ill- gotten
gain.
Rather, hold them accountable to the 2-3-4 plan system.
Don’t ever do their 2-3-4 Plan for them, unless they are out
of town or sick. They are the leaders! You are the leader
of the leaders! You lead…they follow your lead… and
others follow them. The leader of the Beginner’s Class
(who ought to be your most fl amboyant personality) is
supposed to visit the 1’s. He visits all visitors and tells
them more about the program. And since they have not
been assigned to a counsel leader yet, he also calls on
each one in the group that misses class.
The director will pay a visit to everyone who misses
fi ve times. So the Beginner’s Class leader has the 1’s
and the director has the 5’s. The leader has everything
in between: the 2’s, the 3’s and the 4’s. They call on
two misses by Tuesday evening, faithfully. They send a
postcard on three misses by Tuesday evening, faithfully.
(You should provide these free of charge to your leaders,
and they should handle the postage. Make these available
at your book table or attach as many as they need for
that week to their 2-3-4 plan sheet for the week.) On a
4th miss, the leader pays a personal visit by Thursday
evening, faithfully. If the student is home during the
visit, they discuss their absence and encourage them to
continue their discipleship, even if they are doing well in their fi ght to remain abstinent. If the student is not home,
they should leave a “We miss you…at RU” visitation
fl yer at the door or in the mailbox. The chapter makes
these available to the leaders for free as well.
These new postcards and fl yers are so cheap to buy, but
so valuable to our students who are M.I.A. I have literally
had hundreds of students come back to our class from a
well-worded postcard. That’s $0.15 (chapter price) and
postage from the leader. Not a bad investment to keep a
student who has fallen or become puffed up.
By the way, as a director, I also send postcards to our
students that miss 3 times. Every Tuesday morning, my
volunteer RU secretary gives me a folder with all my
visitor’s letters, plus all labeled and stamped postcards
for those who missed three times. I also check the weekly
report to see if the leaders sent their postcards. Whenever
a student receives a postcard and returns to class, they
always thank me. Sometimes they don’t return for a year,
but they always seem to return. They never forget that
phone call, those two postcards, and those two visits.
They know you care; and when they begin to care, they
will go to someone else who does.
The best way to build a chapter is not to go get people.
It’s to not lose the ones who God brings to us.
Next month, I will explain the method and management
of the second part of the tool to develop addicts into
active, vibrant church members: the 300 club.