Every Sunday @ The Bridge we ask people to fill out a “Connection Card” and we often say, “this is the pulse of our church.”   The Connection Card  is the little tear off sheet attached to the bulletin where you can fill-in your name, address, SS #, CC #, etc.  Just Kidding.  We do ask everyone to fill out the card which does include info like name, address, kids, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.  It’s tedious work.  Some of you may wonder, “Why do I have to fill out this dad-blame(sp?) card every week?”  But there are a number of reason we do this. 

1. We believe the Connect Card is the pulse of our church.  When someone fills out their card, we are learning something about them.  Did they have a prayer request?  Is God calling them to some point of decision?  Do they want to join a Connection Group?  All these things help us to get a guage or pulse on what is happening in the life of our church. 
2. Another reason we ask everyone to fill out a card is that we REALLY want our newcomers to fill out a card so we can send them a “thank you” for investing some of their time in us.  We want to be able to let our newcomers know that we are really glad that we had a connection point with them.  But here’s the deal, if we only ask newcomers to fill out the card, it singles them out!  We don’t want to do this!  We want everyone to blend together as one big happy church family.  If everyone else is filling out a card, our newcomers are more likely to fill out their card.

So, when we ask you to fill out your Connection Card each week, let me say “thanks” in advance for doing just that.  Your doing that helps us check our pulse and engage our newcomers.