It is Saturday night. A young family is deciding where to go tomorrow morning. They open your church website on a phone. They have three questions. What time does it start? Where do the kids go? What do we wear?
If the answers take more than one tap to find, many of them pick the church down the road.
A Plan Your Visit page answers those questions before anyone has to ask. It is the most important page on a church website for first-time guests, and most church sites either bury it or skip it.
What a Plan Your Visit page does
It lowers the cost of showing up. A guest who knows the service time, the parking lot and the kids check-in process walks in calm. A guest who does not know walks in guessing, or stays home.
Church leaders often write the page for members who already know the answers. Write it for the person who has never seen your building.
The eight-point checklist
- Service times and length. List every service. Say how long each one lasts, such as “about 75 minutes.” Guests plan their morning around that number.
- Address and parking. Give the street address, a map link, and one sentence on where to park and which door to use.
- What to wear. Say it plainly. “Come as you are. You will see jeans, and you will see suits.”
- Kids. Describe check-in, the ages you serve and who staffs the rooms. Parents decide on this answer alone.
- What the service is like. Describe the music, the length of the message, whether you serve communion and whether anyone will ask a guest to stand up. Tell them no one will, if that is true.
- Who they will meet. Add a photo and first name of a greeter and a pastor. A face removes fear.
- A way to tell you they are coming. Use a short form: name, phone number, number of kids and the service they plan to attend. Four fields at most.
- A way to ask a question. Offer a text or chat option that gets an answer fast.
Five mistakes that cost you guests
The page is hidden. If “Plan Your Visit” sits under an “About” menu, move it to the top bar and the home page.
The page uses church language. “Narthex” and “fellowship hall” mean nothing to a newcomer. Say “the lobby” and “the coffee area.”
The photos are stock photos. Show your real lobby and the people who will greet them. Guests want to see where they are going.
The form asks for too much. Every extra field loses people. Ask for what you need to say hello.
Nothing happens after the form. This one hurts most. A guest tells you they are coming, and then hears nothing until Sunday. About 73% of first-time guests never return, and the most common reason is that nobody followed up. We cover that in Why 73% of First-Time Church Guests Never Return.
How Digital Pastor handles it
The Smart Church Website includes a Plan Your Visit funnel. The pages are mobile-first and written for “church near me” searches. When a guest submits the form, the follow-up sequence starts the same day, and your team gets a reminder to make a personal call.
The AI assistant sits on the same page. A guest who asks about kids check-in at 9 PM on Saturday gets an answer in under 60 seconds, using what you taught it about your church. Your staff reads the conversation on Monday and owns the relationship from there.
Starter at $149 a month includes a template website and the core follow-up system. Growth at $349 a month adds a custom branded website and a custom-trained AI assistant. See the pricing page for full details.
Your first step this week
Open your church website on your phone as if you have never been to your church. Find the service time in under ten seconds. Then find where the kids go. If either takes longer, fix that first.
Bring what you find to a demo. We will show you how the Plan Your Visit page, the form and the follow-up fit together on one site.
