Ministry marketing is made for ministry. If you do it right, you attract people. If your focus is people, then the response you get brings excitement and joy–you are reaching more people than ever before! But if your focus is programs, you are only focused on moving on to the next event in your annual program parade. People get in the way of your planning. “I could really plan a great ministry if these people would stop bothering me!”
If you don’t get excited about seeing people trust Christ, in following-up on new people in your church, in not losing contact with the people you worked so hard to attract to your church, you are no ministry marketer!
How Can You Add Another 1,300 People to Your Church?
Many churches work hard to attract new people, yet when they come they eventually ignore them. I know of a small church that was in a high traffic area of their city. They had about 5-6 guests visit their church each week. None of the members could wrap their minds around the concept of greeting them. The minister expressed displeasure to me with the members for not greeting the new people, yet he did not extend a greeting to them either, unless the guest sought him out. He didn’t set the example for his people to follow.
With an average of five people per week, the church could reach at least 260 new people every year (that’s 1,300 in just five years–that could be banner growth!). Of course, not all of them would really stay, but that is not what ministry is about–God brought 260 people to their doors and they did nothing. Where is the ministry in that?
You don’t have to be obsessed with numbers and growing your church by one thousand people. But shouldn’t you be focused as much as possible on ministering to the people who come to your church? Healthy churches are not over-focused on numbers, but they are appropriately focused on people.
The Church’s $400,000 Dollar Mistake
Imagine on average in that church the per capita giving is just $1500 per year per person that would mean that the 260 people would bring a total of $390,000 to the church each year! If someone came into that small church and plopped down nearly $400K, you can bet the church would put that money in a bank, and keep a tireless vigil over their account books. I imagine they would even get expensive software and hire a CPA to keep track of every penny. Not just because they know they could get audited by the government if they mismanaged their money, but also because they want to be good stewards of God’s money.
I am not trying to be crass. I don’t want anyone to have dollar signs in their eyes when they see people coming in the doors of the church. Yet when God sends people to our doors that we ignore, we show we don’t value them if we don’t follow-up. If our churches would treat every person with the same level of care they show to every penny they receive, we would not have the growth problems we now have in churches.
How to Turn Your Church Growth Around in One Easy Step: Do Some Follow-Up!
Just because you have a promotional plan doesn’t mean you are done with your marketing! The biggest enemy to a successful marketing campaign is the lack of effective follow-up. In this phase of your ministry marketing planning develop a personalized plan for your church to maximize on-going relationship-building. Keep the communication flowing through listening and adjusting to feedback and establish a process for the continual evaluation of your marketing efforts.
- Brainstorm a follow-up process for new people who come to your church that works for at least six months
- Develop a lapsed member follow-up program for people who stop attending your church
- Evaluate the present database used at your church in light of the follow-up process
- Evaluate all the response tools used by your church (visitors cards, processes for getting information, etc) in light of your follow-up process
- Evaluate of last 12-24 months of activities to see the status, the prospects gained from them, and determine what changes may need to be made to future systems
Leave a Reply