Ministry Marketing CoachMinistry Branding and Marketing that Works

Too often church leaders treat advertising as an automatic cure for church growth. They have outreach promotions and special events with members driving new people to the church in order to build a crowd. The belief is the increase in numbers will lead to a few of the new people staying and thereby increasing the number of people reached by the church.

This mentality is driven by the adage (now a cliché) that “it is easier to build a core from a crowd, than it is to build a core into a crowd.” It is true it is easy to build a crowd (through advertising promotions), and in that crowd, you will likely find it easier to recruit people for your church. But there is a second issue with crowd-building not addressed by the adage, and often not addressed by the churches that follow it.

Inoculating People with Outreach?

When you build a crowd you have to bring new people into the church through special events, exciting programs or some other kind of seeker-sensitive program. But if you keep making contacts with new people and don’t take them very deep into the gospel, you create another problem, you could inoculate the people you want to reach against the gospel.

Inoculation works by giving patients enough of a virus that their body can fight it off and develop a resistance to it without really getting the disease. A church that has a continual emphasis on crowd building, without a corresponding emphasis on thorough follow-up, is in danger of inoculating the people in their community to the gospel virus.

A good part of the problem of what is keeping the church in the United States from growing is nominal Christianity (people who are Christian in name only). Too many people have had shallow experiences with the church that lead them to feel they know what faith in Christ is all about. They are mistaken in that Christianity is far more than they know about, but who’s going to tell them the difference? Every time they go to church it’s the same story, a new crowd-building event is underway.

The One Ton Bridge and the Five Ton Message

That is why it is very important that churches that want to build their ministry outreach plan to follow-up with the people they want to reach with thorough next step ministry. Think of each time your church is making the connection with a new person as like building a bridge of understanding with them. The bridge is a one ton bridge*. But the gospel is a five ton message. You can’t take all five tons of the message across the bridge all at the same time, but you can break it down, one ton at a time, and keep delivering until all five tons are delivered.

In many churches, they have delivered the first ton or two of the gospel message in crowd building events, but they still have the responsibility to deliver the rest of the message. In many cases, they don’t continue with people long enough to deliver all “five tons” of the message because they loose attention and are suddenly off looking for the next new prospect.

*For more information about the idea of the one ton bridge, see the book Sowing, Reaping, Keeping by Laurence Singlehurst

Develop Follow-up and Next Steps for the People You Reach

• Look at your church’s guests list from previous months and make plans for someone to connect personally with all the people on it. This is a prospect list of people who need you to make contact with them and make sure they understand the gospel
• Look at your membership rolls and see how many people have become inactive in the church. These are people you may have let fall through the cracks. It’s time to build relationships with them again!
• Develop next step ministries you can involve the people who come to your church in that help them go deeper into the gospel.

Your church needs a strategy for assimilating new people. It is great to have events and outreach to attract people, but you need a next step for the ones you attract. So your church should have several next step ministries designed for people you have attracted that they can participate in and become more deeply exposed to the rest of the gospel. Small groups are ideal for this.

At Saddleback Community church they have assimilation classes that follow the theme of a baseball diamond. You might like that strategy, but you might also come up with your own. The key is to assimilate people you reach into an understanding of the gospel so they can begin a true relationship with Jesus Christ.

Also get new people connected in small groups and in a ministry in the church. Your church should consider developing a network of small groups. Small groups are excellent places for people to take the next steps in understanding the gospel. As old fashioned as it may sound to some, Sunday School still works and is another excellent way to assimilate new people into the life of your church. See LifeWay.com for resources in this area.

The Better Your Follow-up, the Less You May Have to Advertise

If you will have a follow-up plan for all the people your church makes contact with though advertising, you will really be reaching people. You could crank up the advertising to attract more people with a clear conscious, but you probably wouldn’t have to. When you have healthy relationships, thorough follow-up, and people involved in small groups, people are happier and are far more likely to talk about your church to others they know. And word of mouth is the best form of advertising.