One of the greatest things that ever happened to me, other than my salvation, was that God gave me the ability to win a soul to Christ. Leading souls to Christ, and letting people know about the church is ultimately the life blood of the church. When a church stops reaching out, it starts to die. This page provides innovative ways to let the people in your area know about your church, as well as programs that will assist you in reaching out in the high ways and byways. Many of the ideas listed may require a little time and money, and none of them, within themselves, will build the church, but they can be tools that God can use. When it comes to spending money, if we are sending $20,000 overseas for missions, we should be spending money to reach people in our own area. Also, when I use the word INNOVATIVE, I am not talking about compromising the Gospel, but just being creative. I truly believe that we can reach out without selling out the Gospel. We don't need to use worldly methods to fulfill the Great Commission. I hope and pray that some of the ideas shared will be a blessing to you.
Bus ministry
The bus ministry still works in 2009, no matter what people say. It is a great opportunity to reach into homes that are hurting. I truly believe that it was partly responsible for the major growth of the Fundamental Independent Baptist Church in the 70's and 80's. Many churches got rid of the bus ministry and did not replace it with any other kind of out reach programs. Every year, we see many people saved and many lives changed.
Direct Mail
Direct mail can be very effective. But, one must understand that you're in competition with a lot of other mail pieces. You must be creative in having your mail piece stand out. Our church, for Christmas of 2008, mailed out 11,000 invitations. Amazingly, the cost was only $.24 cents per full color jumbo post card, and that was postage included. But we did have to buy a bulk mailing permit from the Post Office. This outreach is mainly to let people in your area know about your church and let them know what is happing at the church. They do work because millions upon millions are spent by politicians and stores on these postcards. The best results seem to work when you target a small area and send multiple mailings.
Word of warning: Don't try these in-house. We did at Victory, and it cost us more money in the long run and it is a lot of work.
New Move In Outreach
This is a service that you can buy that will let you know the new people that move in the area. Though the names are 2 months old after a person/family moves in the area, they can still be effective. Outreach Marketing has the best program right now. They will send a custom card for you, and will e-mail the list to you. The secret to this outreach, is to follow up on these people. We actually get a small gift like cookies or promo materials from our church and take them to the homes of the new move ins. Expect to spend about 80 cents per contact. That includes the postcard and postage and names of the people. This ministry is great for ladies' groups who may not feel comfortable going door to door cold calling.
Friend and Family Day
This has proved to be the best big day our church has ever had on a regular basis.
This program is a twist of the old Friend Day. We call it Friend and Family Day.
A month ahead of time, I start to promote it to the church congregation. We actually send a packet to each of our members via the mail, with a letter explaining the big day. I enclose 3 postcards and invitations for our people to use. You can also include commitment cards, in which their friends and family members can fill out. Once these are filled out, then I usually send the committed visitors a personal letter. (People feel important when they get something in the mail.) I also print up hundreds of invitations and have them ready for Sunday for our people to take home.
Plan a potluck dinner. Tell your congregation that if friends and family offer to bring something, to let them, because of they bring something, then they are more likely to come.
The last Friend and Family day that we had at Victory, we had about 70 new visitors in the morning service. This is very common for us, and it has been a real shot in the arm for our people.
Helpful Documents:
*Unless marked otherwise, all documents are in MS Word format.
- A New Exciting Way to get contacts for the ministry (PDF)
- Survey Evanglism (PDF)
- WBBF Meeting Jesus Driven Conference (PDF)
- baptism certificate (MS Publisher)
- DOOR_HANGER (MS Publisher) (see example below)
- HOTDOG POSTCARD (MS Publisher)
- REVIVAL HANDOUTS (MS Publisher)
- Stewardship HANDOUTS (MS Publisher)
- Blank Promtional
- couples retreat
