5 More Small Church Strategies
I’ve corresponded with a few pastors in the blogosphere since my last post on small church strategies, and I’ve been delighted to see many pastors of small churches actively seeking new strategies to serve their congregation, and potential congregation. It is because of this, I wanted to post a few more strategies that have been bouncing around in my head over the last month or so.
However, keep in mind that the goal is not necessarily to grow you church. It’s always nice to see more people pack into the buildings to get fellowship and teaching/worship, it’s not the only way to measure “success” as a church. God blesses in many ways, not just growth. But, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate growth when it happens. The following are some material strategies to help remove some of the barriers to church attendance.
1. Signs
I know the small church I used to attend had a horrible location. Even if people know about your church, if they can’t find it they won’t show up. Most towns have a small sign shop that will do generic signs for VERY cheap. Obviously, it’s best to have a nice recognizable logo on your sign, but that can be a bit more expensive (both the design, and the printing) so that may not be an option. Place the signs in high traffic areas like main roads. Lead the visitor to your church by allowing them to simply “follow the signs”. Also, be sure to put your church’s web address on the signs (you do have a website, don’t you?).
2. Radio commercials
This too can be very inexpensive. BUT, don’t use the cheesy buzzwords. For instance, definitely no Christianese, no phrases that mention “we care about people” or “if you don’t have a church home”, etc. Make it real. Pastors, YOU need to do the recording for the commercial. People want to hear YOU invite them to your church. Get a group of creative people in your church, put them in a room, and come up with a script. Make it concise, make it friendly, be creative! Oh, be sure to mention that church website (you do have a website NOW don’t you?).
3. Solidarity trips
This is interesting, and a bit harder to pull off, but if the intended result comes to pass, it can be invaluable. Plan a trip (it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money, can even be a camping trip, just go somewhere). Invite the people in your church who you think have the most ministry potential. This is a perfect opportunity to reestablish and refocus the vision of the church, encourage your best workers not to give up, inspire them to push harder in their pursuit of excellence when serving to the church, and lead them in being a more effective witness in the community by inviting and encouraging others to invite people to church. Once you return from the trip, you must take immediate advantage of the new passion in your volunteers. Don’t let it die before they have a chance to act on the new energy they received. This is best accomplished by having activities planned for the return in advance.
4. Network at a local college
Have your youth leader (or if you don’t have one, do it yourself) take the teenagers (especially the college-age kids) to you local college or university. Find some of the Bible studies that go in during the week and join them. This is not only a way for your youth to get a good mid-week lesson from the Word, but also allows them (and especially your youth minister) to network with core Christ-followers in the college. There’ a good chance that those kids may not have anyone who “leads” their study, which gives your church an opportunity to minister to them.
5. Use all the free advertising you can
I know my town has restaurants that post the “church of the week”, my local Wal-Mart lets you post flyers on their bulletin board, etc. Call around, or better yet have a passionate church member call for you, and find all the ways you can advertise for free or very cheap. Take advantage of them all. It may not bring in hundreds of families, but it’s a start. One of the best places to do this is in restaurant waiting areas. Post your flyer on Sunday morning, and have it say something like “Are you going to church anywhere this morning? How about this evening?”. It’s a good way to get unchurched Christians to notice the flyer.
Whew! OK, if you have any suggestions for more small church strategies, send them to me via my contact form. If I like them, I may just post another small church strategy post and include them.
If you liked this story, and want more like it, why not subscribe to my feed and get the automatically? No feed reader? No problem! Just sign up to receive my posts via email.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader. If you don't have a feed reader, you can always have these articles delivered to your email inbox every day. Click here to sign up.
I would also add having a very functional website. One can ensure people in the congregation have the opportunity to be updated with news, calendars, etc.
Even a small church can have a great and inexpensive web site. I would even add that you need streaming audio of weekly sermons. If I visit a church, I love to hear more sermons from the pastor to realy get a feel for his heart.
Gotta say I’m with you on this one. A functional website can no longer be considered as an afterthought.
I too like to listen to a couple of sermons online before I decide to visit a church. And you’re right, all these things can be relatively cheap.
Each church I pastored was small when I went there. In many cases the people had lost their vision and needed some quickly. A small church can either have close relationships or they will have strained relationships. The key is getting people on the same page and developing closeness. Around our ministry (a ministry dedicated to helping smaller churches) we have a saying, “Ministry grows out of relationships”. When people grow close they also grow outward. One to one discipleship helps draw people close to God and to each other.
We can do all sorts of things to bring attention to our churches, but when people come they need to see a loving, caring, spiritually growing ministry.
After pastoring 3 small churches and leading them to their next level of growth, I have now dedicated my life and ministry to helping the pastors of smaller churches. In this so-called mega-church society, the reality is that the majority of America’s churches have less then 75 people attending them. The community church is still the backbone of the nation. It just needs to be a bit stronger is all.