In yesterday’s article 2 Attitudes for Small Church Transformation, Ron Crandall’s study pointed out how evangelistic growth in the small church is rooted in relationships and need strategies to increase the number of first time church visitors.
Larger churches may have lots of programs to help attract them and integrate people quickly. Smaller churches may not have the programmatic resources. Their strength has to be relational.
In turnaround churches,
“new faces and families in church enable members to believe again in a brighter future and invest again in their buildings, their witness, and their efforts to please God.”
15 Efforts to Increase First Time Visitors in the small church
Crandall surveyed pastors on their intentional church growth efforts.
He wanted to learn which efforts seemed fruitful to reach new people and increase the retention of first time church visitors.
- Emphasis on Invite a Friend
- Utilize advertising — phone, letters, ads, signs
- Start new programs
- Welcome visitors better
- Encourage lay visitation
- Follow up with visitors
- Conduct pastoral visitation
- Focus on children’s ministries
- Deliver visitor welcome packets and baked goods
- Offer pastoral care to the community
- Redirect existing programs outward
- Clarify the meaning of being a Christian
- Pray intentionally for unreached people.
- Provide opportunities for new people to serve
- Plan for special evangelistic events.
The key result here is that small churches must do well at making relational contact.
What surprised me is how high advertising ran on this list — which isn’t personal at all.
Download this report to help you improve your welcome ministry as they come.
How new people come to church for the first time
Now Crandall’s original study was done in the late 1990s, when church growth scholarship was really studying the impact of such advertising. From research done some time ago and still in print from Amazon (Source: The Inviting Church, 1987 p. 44), here is what was found:
- 2% by Advertisement
- 6% by the Pastoral Invitation
- 6% by organized evangelism campaign
- 86% by friends or relatives
两个鬼故事手机ip地址查询养鸭成本公司起名带云字的火锅烧烤一体店起名火影忍者641集视频搜索软件姓普的女孩怎么起名王欣然起名怎么样女孩起名用贞字好吗适合起名的成语根据八字起公司名是贾姓男孩起名依据八字起名免费少年班电影高山流水觅知音起名姓董的水木起名女孩名字梦幻拉拉电视剧在线唐小菲入不敷出夏姓女孩起名大全免费农资公司起名大全起名女孩 姓赵姓朱荣字辈起名ultraedit绿色版起什么名字好又时尚女孩子五虎将后传2.6八字缺金起什么名称红字开头的公司起名少年生前被连续抽血16次?多部门介入两大学生合买彩票中奖一人不认账让美丽中国“从细节出发”淀粉肠小王子日销售额涨超10倍高中生被打伤下体休学 邯郸通报单亲妈妈陷入热恋 14岁儿子报警何赛飞追着代拍打雅江山火三名扑火人员牺牲系谣言张家界的山上“长”满了韩国人?男孩8年未见母亲被告知被遗忘中国拥有亿元资产的家庭达13.3万户19岁小伙救下5人后溺亡 多方发声315晚会后胖东来又人满为患了张立群任西安交通大学校长“重生之我在北大当嫡校长”男子被猫抓伤后确诊“猫抓病”测试车高速逃费 小米:已补缴周杰伦一审败诉网易网友洛杉矶偶遇贾玲今日春分倪萍分享减重40斤方法七年后宇文玥被薅头发捞上岸许家印被限制高消费萧美琴窜访捷克 外交部回应联合利华开始重组专访95后高颜值猪保姆胖东来员工每周单休无小长假男子被流浪猫绊倒 投喂者赔24万小米汽车超级工厂正式揭幕黑马情侣提车了西双版纳热带植物园回应蜉蝣大爆发当地回应沈阳致3死车祸车主疑毒驾恒大被罚41.75亿到底怎么缴妈妈回应孩子在校撞护栏坠楼外国人感慨凌晨的中国很安全杨倩无缘巴黎奥运校方回应护栏损坏小学生课间坠楼房客欠租失踪 房东直发愁专家建议不必谈骨泥色变王树国卸任西安交大校长 师生送别手机成瘾是影响睡眠质量重要因素国产伟哥去年销售近13亿阿根廷将发行1万与2万面值的纸币兔狲“狲大娘”因病死亡遭遇山火的松茸之乡“开封王婆”爆火:促成四五十对奥巴马现身唐宁街 黑色着装引猜测考生莫言也上北大硕士复试名单了德国打算提及普京时仅用姓名天水麻辣烫把捣辣椒大爷累坏了
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I don’t know if there has been any new research to show these numbers to have changed or remain the same.
At least the statistics show that for most growth to happen, personal invitation is still the best. I was glad to see that is still #1 on the list.
Invite a friend
There are some formal campaigns that you can create to run “Friendship Sundays” or “Friends and Family day” or something like that. The idea is pick a Sunday and build momentum for invitation, programming and the like. That’s one approach.
A Twitter follower bought a 10 week packaged campaign off the Internet in 2009 and laughed at it’s 1980s content, down to the poster art and the plastic lapel pins. At least the tapes were updated to CDs, though the manual still referred to tapes.
But it doesn’t take a lot of resources to run such a campaign.
Read these 6 steps to host an invite a friend campaign
Successful evangelism in small churches
But Crandall’s research revealed that
Successful results in outreach, evangelism, and church growth in smaller churches depends on
- Having a pastor who leads in evangelism
- Training, planning, and goal setting for growth
- Inviting friends and family to church
- Designing programs to reach new people
- Visiting all prospects
- Enhancing the church’s image through promotion and advertising
- Holding special evangelistic events
- Clarifying the meaning of being Christian
- Praying for God to touch lives
- Using the gifts of the body for the work of the kingdom.
This list highlights for me the role of a pastor in church growth. Yet the challenge that I keep encountering is that many pastors have no formal seminary training (confirmed by Martha Reece’s research and Ron’s Research), nor do many pastors (at least mainline anyway) have a lot of personal experience in personal evangelism.
They may be able to set the goals for growth and hope other people help make it, but pastors need to lead in evangelism.
Once your church visitors come, are you ready to impress them?
两个鬼故事手机ip地址查询养鸭成本公司起名带云字的火锅烧烤一体店起名火影忍者641集视频搜索软件姓普的女孩怎么起名王欣然起名怎么样女孩起名用贞字好吗适合起名的成语根据八字起公司名是贾姓男孩起名依据八字起名免费少年班电影高山流水觅知音起名姓董的水木起名女孩名字梦幻拉拉电视剧在线唐小菲入不敷出夏姓女孩起名大全免费农资公司起名大全起名女孩 姓赵姓朱荣字辈起名ultraedit绿色版起什么名字好又时尚女孩子五虎将后传2.6八字缺金起什么名称红字开头的公司起名少年生前被连续抽血16次?多部门介入两大学生合买彩票中奖一人不认账让美丽中国“从细节出发”淀粉肠小王子日销售额涨超10倍高中生被打伤下体休学 邯郸通报单亲妈妈陷入热恋 14岁儿子报警何赛飞追着代拍打雅江山火三名扑火人员牺牲系谣言张家界的山上“长”满了韩国人?男孩8年未见母亲被告知被遗忘中国拥有亿元资产的家庭达13.3万户19岁小伙救下5人后溺亡 多方发声315晚会后胖东来又人满为患了张立群任西安交通大学校长“重生之我在北大当嫡校长”男子被猫抓伤后确诊“猫抓病”测试车高速逃费 小米:已补缴周杰伦一审败诉网易网友洛杉矶偶遇贾玲今日春分倪萍分享减重40斤方法七年后宇文玥被薅头发捞上岸许家印被限制高消费萧美琴窜访捷克 外交部回应联合利华开始重组专访95后高颜值猪保姆胖东来员工每周单休无小长假男子被流浪猫绊倒 投喂者赔24万小米汽车超级工厂正式揭幕黑马情侣提车了西双版纳热带植物园回应蜉蝣大爆发当地回应沈阳致3死车祸车主疑毒驾恒大被罚41.75亿到底怎么缴妈妈回应孩子在校撞护栏坠楼外国人感慨凌晨的中国很安全杨倩无缘巴黎奥运校方回应护栏损坏小学生课间坠楼房客欠租失踪 房东直发愁专家建议不必谈骨泥色变王树国卸任西安交大校长 师生送别手机成瘾是影响睡眠质量重要因素国产伟哥去年销售近13亿阿根廷将发行1万与2万面值的纸币兔狲“狲大娘”因病死亡遭遇山火的松茸之乡“开封王婆”爆火:促成四五十对奥巴马现身唐宁街 黑色着装引猜测考生莫言也上北大硕士复试名单了德国打算提及普京时仅用姓名天水麻辣烫把捣辣椒大爷累坏了
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William Dawson
Thank you for your encourging advice ,i pray that our pastor is open to this new approach some times change is hard, especiallyi convincing others to try ,but wih Christ all things are possible.,please everybody pray for us here at 2nd Baptist
EvangelismCoach
Sunday, Thank you for visiting the EvangelismCoach website and encouraging me today!
Evangelist Sunday T. Abolainde
thanks for you efforts, as an soul winning evangelist, you have done a good work on details on how to win soul, may God bless you, thanks Eva
gelist Sunday
EvangelismCoach
@Mark:
Effective soul winning starts with prayer. Then watch for the nudge of the Holy Spirit to prompt you for where God the Father is drawing people to Himself. As you step out in obedience to that nudge, watch for evidence of spiritual thirst. Then discern where you are in their story – are you watering a seed, planting a seed, or harvesting a seed. Help them take the next step forward in their journey by suggesting a next step like a bible study, prayer, church invite or more.
Since there are no formulas for soul winning, I can’t give a receipie to follow. But I can share that general process I’ve seen work in my life.
MARK
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the son of the Most High God,
I am the leader of evangelism and soul winning of my Church I really need some tips on Effective Soul Winning Thank You and God Bless You.
akinjide
Thanks sir. i am blessed by this post. it will go a long way for me.
BSP PAUL K.WAMBUA.
God bls you..
Our Church is small and i have a Vision for a mega Church..
Pastor Meshach Nwazue
Bless you Pastor, Our church is quite small in number and we’re determined to see it grow. Truly, your suggestions are the hidden answers we desperately need to make a difference. Thank you so much.
EvangelismCoach
Kingsley,
The ideas here are pretty good. But two more questions come to mind as places to look:
1). What keeps your members from inviting people? If your members are not giving invitations, there may be some avenues to examine. Members are the first filter of who they will invite.
2). Is there ongoing prayer for invited guests? I write a little more about that here: https://www.evangelismcoach.org/2016/invite-your-friends-to-church-10-ways-to-pray-for-those-invitations/
Kingsley
Thanks for points raised on this subject. Our church is small and we have employed a good number of the strategies outlined here but still can barely see the result. Could it be that our mode of implementing the the strategies are inadequate?
Jhanleo H. Vitto
Blessed Day Pastor .im a Student Pastor Studying in All for Christ Theological Seminary Here in Oriental mindoro Phillipines.
Thanks a Lot in These Phases .For Strategies on How Church Encrease ..I will Do This..
EvangelismCoach
Pastor Nyabiya,
Thanks for taking the time to drop by and leave a comment. I can only imagine the challenges of reaching out to people in your region. I do pray that churches in your region will continue to reach out with the Love of Jesus.
Chris.
Pastor Nyabiya S. Awusy
Thanks Pastors Chris for your write up on 15 strategies to I crease first time visitors I really appreciated your points. The church was scattered by the terrorists (boko haram) Christ will rebuild His Church. Thanks.
Feyisayo Abiodun
Ours is a small Church which needs increase in membership quite urgently. I have learnt one or two things from reading this post. Thanks and God bless you.
EvangelismCoach
May the Lord open the doors for your church members to invite their friends and share their faith. Keep praying for more workers for the harvest.
Pastor John Akinyemi
we have a very small church and we are believing God for an increase