Guest Journeys
Guest Journeys are the messages and follow-up tasks that happen automatically around a guest's visit — before they come, after they come, when they miss a visit, and when they have not been back. Passport ships a recommended sequence for each, and you can change every word and every timing.
If you have used other church software, this is the thing you may know as a nurture sequence or a drip campaign.
What you need
- Admin access in Passport
- At least one service time under Admin → Settings → Services
- A Plus or Pro plan for the automated texts and emails. On Basic (GoReach) the journeys still create follow-up tasks for your team — only the automated messaging is held back.
Switching Run guest journeys off stops the texts and emails. Follow-up tasks are still created for a first visit, a planned visit, and a missed visit — turning the switch off keeps the pipeline without the robot; it does not turn off follow-up.
Open the editor
- Open People → Visitors.
- Select Set up.
- Choose the Journeys tab.
Passport ships ten journeys. Switch between them along the top; the number on each is how many of its steps are currently switched on.
Four of them follow a guest around a service visit:
| Journey | When it runs |
|---|---|
| Before their visit | From the moment someone plans a visit until they arrive |
| After their first visit | The week after a first visit |
| They missed their visit | Someone planned to come and did not |
| They haven't been back | A first-time guest has not returned |
Three run when somebody goes quiet, and are started by the guest's stage changing rather than by anything a person does:
| Journey | When it runs |
|---|---|
| Captured but never came | You have their details, but they have never attended |
| Gone quiet | Somebody who was connected has drifted away |
| Welcome to membership | Somebody has just been recognised as a member |
Three more are anchored to a community event rather than a service — Before the event, After the event for the people who came, and They missed the event for the people who registered and did not. They work exactly the same way.
What a step can be
Every step is one of four things:
| Channel | What happens |
|---|---|
| Text | An SMS to the guest |
| An email to the guest | |
| Task | A care assignment for a named person on your team |
| Staff alert | A notification to your team, not to the guest |
There is no push-notification step. Passport sends push notifications elsewhere, but never as part of a guest journey — a phone alert is not something a guest who has visited once has agreed to receive.
Read a journey before you change it
Each journey is a vertical list, in the order a guest experiences it. Every step shows:
- What it is — a text, an email, or a task for your team
- When it happens, in plain language: "1 day before their visit, 5:00 PM"
- Whether it matches our recommendation, as a green or amber chip
- The first line of what the guest actually receives
Underneath most steps is a short note explaining why the default is what it is. Read those before changing timings — they are the reasoning, not marketing.
Edit a message
- Select Edit on a step.
- Change the wording, the timing, or both.
- Select Save.
Passport also saves on its own a moment after you stop typing, and again if you close the step — so an edit is never lost because you navigated away. The Save button and the status beside it are there so you can see that for yourself rather than having to trust it.
You can write in English and Español separately using the toggle above the list. Passport sends whichever matches the guest's language, so a Spanish-speaking guest gets your Spanish wording rather than a translation.
Tokens you can use
| Token | Becomes |
|---|---|
{{firstName}} | The guest's first name |
{{churchName}} | Your church name |
{{serviceDate}} | The date they chose, e.g. Sunday, August 9 |
{{serviceTime}} | Just the time, e.g. 10:00 AM |
{{serviceDateTime}} | Both, e.g. Sunday, August 9 at 10:00 AM |
{{campusName}} | The campus, where you have more than one |
{{addressText}} | Your street address |
{{mapUrl}} | A map link — yours if you set one, otherwise generated from your address |
{{visitPageUrl}} | Your Visit Page |
{{pastorName}} | Your pastor's name |
{{parkingTip}}, {{kidsNote}}, {{attireNote}} | From Details your messages can use, below the journeys |
{{nextStepLabel}}, {{nextStepUrl}} | Your usual next step for a new guest |
{{livestreamUrl}} | Your livestream URL, when set on the Visit Brief |
{{pastorVideoUrl}} | The pastor welcome video from Settings → Visit Page |
{{eventName}}, {{eventDateTime}}, {{eventLocation}}, {{eventMapUrl}} | The event, in the event journeys only |
A token with nothing behind it renders as empty rather than showing the token itself — so an unfinished detail will never leak {{parkingTip}} into a guest's text. Two steps go further: the one next step message is skipped entirely rather than sent with a gap where {{nextStepLabel}} should be, and the Pastor welcome video text is skipped when {{pastorVideoUrl}} is empty (set that link on Settings → Visit Page).
About timings
You can change the numbers in a step's timing, but not what it is anchored to. A step that fires before their visit cannot be changed into one that fires after they plan — those describe different moments, and swapping them would produce a step that never runs.
Two anchors are worth understanding:
- Before their visit counts back from the service the guest actually chose.
- Before your next service counts back from your church's next service, whenever that is. This is why the re-invite works the same for a Sunday-morning church, a Wednesday-night church, or both.
:::note Steps whose moment has passed are skipped, not sent late If someone plans on Saturday for Sunday, the "2 days before" text is simply not sent — it does not arrive retroactively. The day-before and morning-of messages still go out if their time has not passed either. :::
When Passport warns you
Changing a setting outside the recommended shape shows an amber note explaining the trade-off. It always saves anyway. You know your people; the warning is there so the trade-off is deliberate rather than accidental.
You will see one if you, for example, delay the thank-you text well beyond the visit, stretch a follow-up task past the deadline recommended for that particular step, remove the invitation to reply from a text you have rewritten, or set the weekly message cap very low or very high.
Each care task carries its own recommended deadline rather than one number for all of them — chasing a first-time guest is a two-day job, while winning back somebody who drifted away months ago is not. Shortening a deadline is never flagged; only stretching one past what that step recommends.
Restore the recommended version
Two levels, both behind a confirmation:
- On a step — Edit → Restore recommended
- On a whole journey — Restore recommended above the list
Restoring replaces both the timing and the wording. Anything you wrote there is lost.
What you get back is always inside the recommendations — restoring never leaves a step marked Outside recommended.
Details your messages can use
Below the journeys is a short list of things guests always ask about: parking, kids, what to wear, and your usual next step for somebody new. Write each one once and any message can pull it in.
Each row shows the token it fills, so you can see which message text will use it. Leaving one blank is fine — the token renders as nothing rather than as a broken sentence.
Guardrails
The Guardrails tab holds the limits that apply across every journey.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| When we're allowed to text | Messages only go out inside this window, in your local time. Anything scheduled outside it waits. |
| Most messages one guest gets in a week | Once a guest hits this, further steps are held rather than sent. |
| Most messages your church sends in a day | A safety brake — see below. |
| Pause when a guest replies | Holds automation while a staff member is talking to them. |
Two of these matter more than they look
Quiet hours can be narrowed but not widened past 8:00 AM–9:00 PM. Automated texts outside those hours are a legal problem, not a matter of taste. A Saturday-evening visitor therefore gets their thank-you on Sunday morning — that is deliberate.
The daily ceiling is your protection against junk traffic. Once you point paid ads at your Visit Page you will get bot submissions, and each one would otherwise trigger a real, billed text message. If the ceiling is reached, messages are held and your team is told — nothing is lost, and nothing runs away with your budget.
Coming from Visitor Follow-Up Automation
If your church used the older Visitor Follow-Up Automation, your settings carry across:
- Your own wording is kept exactly as you wrote it
- Your own delays are kept, even where they differ from our recommendation — you will see the amber note, and it is your call
- If you had automation switched off, it stays off
- Your weekly message cap carries over
One thing changes on purpose: the old end-of-week invite was hard-wired to Sunday morning. It now anchors to your next service, which is correct for churches that do not meet on Sunday mornings.
Troubleshooting
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Automated messages are part of Plus" | Journeys will create tasks for your team but not send texts or emails. Check your plan under Admin → Settings → Plan & Billing. |
| A step shows "Off" and nothing sends | The step is switched off. Toggle it on. |
| Nothing at all is sending | Check the master Switch on at the top of the Journeys tab. |
| A guest got a task but no text | Either your plan does not include messaging, or the guest has opted out of texts. |
| Messages stopped partway through a campaign | You may have hit the daily ceiling or, on a trial, the 10-message trial limit. |
| A guest replied and everything went quiet | Working as intended — automation pauses so a person can answer. |
Next steps
- See the result — The Guests hub shows who a journey has contacted and who still needs a person.
- Handle the replies — A guest who answers a journey text lands in the Inbox.
- Feed it more guests — Your Plan Your Visit page is what starts most journeys.