Problem. The Louisville First Seventh-day Adventist Church attracts approximately 250 first-time guests through its doors each year. Of these approximately 5% are actually connecting to the church through membership. The local church has no organized, effective means of connecting these guests to the church and Christ, therefore great growth potential is being squandered. The intention of this project is to increase the evangelistic impact of Louisville First and other Seventh-day Adventist churches in metropolitan areas by increasing the number of first-time guests to membership ratio.

Method. A guest retention process was developed and implemented in 2010 at the Louisville First Seventh-day Adventist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, which consisted of: (a) a training of the church leadership to provide awareness and authorization, (b) a four-part sermon series to introduce the biblical foundations and details of the guest retention process to the whole congregation, (c) a training seminar to give basic hospitality training to the members of the hospitality team, and (d) a training for the follow-up of guests at Louisville First Seventh-day Adventist Church. The guest retention process was then tested to measure its effectiveness.

Results. The overall guest retention process training brought greater awareness of biblical hospitality and the attendance of guests at Louisville First Seventh-day Adventist Church. The pre- and post-evaluation instrument also showed that the guest retention process was perceived to be more successful at evangelism effectiveness.

Conclusion. The guest retention process project proved to be a valuable training resource in the Louisville First Seventh-day Adventist Church. This resource might be a valuable training tool for other locations as well.