Community Events
A community event is something you put on for people who do not go to your church — a back-to-school giveaway, a BBQ in the park, a carol service, a fireworks night. Passport gives it a public registration page, reminds the people who sign up, lets you mark who actually turned up, and then follows the two groups differently.
It is deliberately not a separate part of the product. A community event is an ordinary event on your calendar that you have chosen to advertise.
:::note What this is for The point of a community event is not the headcount. It is the Sunday afterwards. Everything below is built around one number: how many of the people you met that day go on to attend a service. :::
What you need
- An event on your Calendar with Registration required switched on
- Texting switched on, if you want people to get a confirmation (Admin → Settings → Text messaging)
- A Plus or Pro plan. Community events are built on your calendar, which is part of Plus, so the whole thing (the public page, the roster and the follow-up) needs Plus or Pro.
:::note On GoReach or Companion GoReach is the outreach plan: the GoReach map and prospect cards both bring in prospects. Companion adds the Visit Page and guest follow-up. Community events need the calendar, so they start at Plus. :::
Turn on public registration
- Go to Services → Calendar and open (or add) your event.
- Tick Registration required.
- Tick Public registration page.
That is the whole setup. The page is live immediately, using your event's title and your church's branding from your Visit Page — the same logo, the same colour, the same look a guest gets when they plan a Sunday visit.
Your link
Your page lives at /visit/your-church/e/your-event. Passport suggests one from the event title, so Back-to-School Bash becomes back-to-school-bash. Shorten it if it is going on a printed card.
Passport tells you immediately if another of your events is already using that link. Links are per-church, so another church using back-to-school does not stop you.
What to fill in
Everything else is optional and most churches leave it alone. Worth setting:
| Field | Why |
|---|---|
| Headline | Defaults to the event title. Change it if the title is internal shorthand |
| What to bring | "A picnic blanket if you have one" — the question you would otherwise be answering by text all week |
| Ask how many are coming | On by default. This is how you know whether to buy 200 packs or 300 |
What somebody sees
One date — theirs — with the time, the place and a map link. Then a short form: name, mobile, how many adults, how many children, and the children's ages.
They do not pick a date, because there is only one, and they do not need an account.
There is also a quiet link under the form: "Can't make this one? You're welcome at a service any time." Somebody who reads the whole page and then realises they are busy that Saturday is the most interested person who will not be at your event, and that link turns them into a planned Sunday visit instead of a closed tab. Visits it produces are credited to the event in Reports.
Three states are handled for you, and none of them is a dead end:
- Full — the page says so, and offers your service times instead
- Registration closed — same
- Nearly full — a quiet "3 places left" appears only under ten, so it reads as information rather than pressure
What happens next
| When | What they get |
|---|---|
| Straight away | A text confirming the event, the date, the time and the place, and an email with the map and the practical details |
| 3 days before | A light reminder |
| The day before, early evening | The one that most reduces no-shows |
| The morning of | Parking, and "we've saved you a spot" |
Edit any of it under Admin → Settings → Guest journeys, on the Community event journeys. See Guest Journeys.
:::note Somebody already booked in for a Sunday hears nothing about the event If a guest has already told you they are coming to a service, they get the confirmation on screen and nothing else — no event reminders. They are in one relationship with your church, not two, and the Sunday is the one that matters. If they do come to the event and you mark them in, the thank-you and the follow-up run as normal. :::
On the day
Open Event Day from the event on your calendar or from the earlier services list on the attendance screen, or from the Passport app, which is the better choice when the event is in a park. For an event with registration, Event Day is where you take attendance, so the calendar shows it in place of the Attendance button. Anyone whose role can record attendance can use Event Day; they don't need permission to edit the event.
Three things on one screen:
- Expected — everybody who registered, with their party size and their children's ages
- Here — the ones you have marked
- Add a walk-in — a name and a mobile number, for the people who never registered. At a public event that is usually most of the queue. Turn on They agreed to receive texts only if the person told you they are happy to get texts; otherwise Passport sends them no automated texts. See Guest Consent to Texts and Emails.
Tap Here as people come in. That one tap does three things: it stops the reminders, it starts the thank-you, and it puts them in the count that eventually tells you whether the event worked. Marked the wrong person? Tap the HERE stamp to undo it and they go back to expected. A person's name opens their profile.
If somebody marks a registered person here on the Attendance screen instead, it counts exactly the same: they show as here on Event Day and get the thank-you, not the no-show message.
:::tip Use a phone Event Day is the part of Passport that is genuinely better on a phone. The buttons are sized for one hand while you are talking to somebody, and marking somebody in works even on poor signal. :::
The two follow-ups
This is the part that makes an outreach event worth running, and the two groups are treated differently on purpose.
They came. About two hours later they get a thank-you that mentions the event by name. Two days before your next service they get an invitation to it — "same people you met" — with a link to your Visit Page. After three days a member of your team gets a task to have one actual conversation, because a person converts at a rate no message does.
They did not come. A couple of hours after the event ends: "Sorry we missed you today — hope everything's alright. You're welcome any time." It names the event, never the absence. They get the same Sunday invitation on the same schedule, with no reference to the event they missed. If you mark them in afterwards, because the list was finished late, that message stops.
:::note Why the no-show branch is so light Somebody who missed a free BBQ owes your church nothing. A message that sounds like a register being taken is how you lose them for good. The only goal is that they still feel welcome enough to say yes next time. :::
They are still prospects
Somebody who comes to your community event is a prospect, not a visitor — and stays one until they attend an actual church service.
This is deliberate, and it is the same everywhere in Passport — see the Glossary. "Visitor" is your word for somebody who has been to church. If coming to a BBQ made somebody a visitor, your visitor count would stop describing anything, your retention numbers would drift, and the people who genuinely turned up on a Sunday would be lost among those who ate a burger in a park.
When they do come to a service, everything happens as normal: they become a visitor automatically, and the usual visitor follow-up takes over.
Did it work?
Open Reports and look under Where do guests come from?, below the channel table. See Reports.
One row for each event with registration in the period you pick, ending in the only column that matters:
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Registered | People who signed up |
| Came | How many you marked in |
| Did not come | Registered, but not marked in. This is your no-show count |
| Came to a service | People from the event who came to a service within 90 days of it |
That last number is what an outreach event is actually judged on. A church can fill a park and be no closer to anything.
:::caution A recent event will look worse than it is A service visit counts whenever it happens within 90 days of the event. An event held last weekend has had almost no chance to show up in the last column yet. Check an older one before drawing conclusions. :::
Common questions
Somebody registered twice. They did not — Passport matches on email, then on mobile number, so the second attempt tells them they are already on the list rather than creating a second record.
A family registered once but six of them came. That is what the party size is for. If it turns out to be wrong on the day, it is worth correcting on the roster before you plan the next one.
Somebody who already comes on Sundays registered. They get the confirmation and the reminders, because they asked to come. They do not get the guest follow-up — Passport does not invite a member to try a Sunday.
We cancelled the event. Cancel it on the calendar and the pre-event reminders stop. Do not delete it — people have registered, and deleting removes their records along with it.
Next steps
- Where they go next — Your Plan Your Visit page is what the invitation links to.
- Change the wording — Guest Journeys.
- Work the people you met — The Guests hub.