A visitor is defined as a person visiting a person or place. A  guest is defined as a person invited to visit the home or take part in a function organized by another. See the subtle difference?

Those who attend your church or events sponsored by your church are better described by the later word. They are indeed guests. We invite people to attend, whether it is by personal invitation or through our advertising.

While their actions are visits, it just seems more suitable to call them guests. We all want to appear warm and inviting to those attending our church, so it makes sense to use a warm and inviting term to describe them.

This idea of referring to people as guests rather than visitors has been a tradition at our church for a number of years now. I know that is the case at other churches as well; because, in our conversations with you about BVCMS and assimilation, that is how I hear you refer to them.

I'm not sure why we did not do this earlier, but we recently made a global change inside BVCMS . Where you formerly saw the word Visitor, you will now see the word Guest . This is in places such as lists that show Members and Guests; on the tab on an Organization; even on the meeting page where you click to Add Guests.

For now, at least, Help Documentation (including the screenshots) will still contain the word visitor. This will gradually be changed. Also, at some point, we will change the terminology on the iPhone (Attendance - Add Visitor) as well.

I felt that it was important to take the time to explain this change to you. I hope that you realize that we do not make changes just for the sake of change. We want changes to have meaning. And I believe this change does.