Last time we talked about working on your ministry, not just in it. And I gave you the outline for the third message in a series designed to ignite your church’s heart for lost people.
Today we’re going to talk about what it takes to build an outreach system – so you are ready for visitors to stick at your church.
Please take a minute to pray, asking God to give you an undistracted fifteen minute window to speak to you just now, as you read.
Building (or Rebuilding) Your Outreach System
Alright, let’s talk about doing things that will touch and attract unchurched people to your fellowship.
What will touch and attract your neighbors?
Right now, your church has a reputation in your community, and chances are your reputation is not what you think it is.
Many churches have no reputation at all because the people living around them aren’t even aware that they exist. Some churches have reputations for the negative things they’ve done.
A few engage the community in acts of service, or a large annual event (a fall Harvest Festival or an Easter Sunrise Service, for example).
Whatever your reputation, you’re going to have to enhance and improve it if you want to increase your momentum in the community.
In my experience, increasing your friendliness factor is the fastest and easiest way to make immediate improvement.
Five Ways to be a Friendly Church
1. Preach about being friendly.
If you want to increase your friendliness factor, I encourage you to start by talking to your people about being friendly.
You can do this in the application section of several of your Capturing God’s Heart sermons:
- “What does it look like to be friendly to people?”
- “What does it look like to be friendly to them in the grocery store?”
- “What does it look like to be friendly in the neighborhood?”
- “What does it look like to be friendly when they visit our church?”
Or, you could actually preach a sermon or two on the subject.
The next point is a practical tool that might help.
2. Teach your church to “LINE-UP.”
Several years ago, (during a message on “come and see”) I taught the church to be friendly through the acronym “LINE-UP.” I put a whiteboard on stage, wrote each of the letters vertically on the left-hand side, and then filled it in this way:
LOOK for someone you don’t know.
Every time you come to church, instead of concentrating on your friends, make it your goal to extend God’s love to someone you don’t know. And what do you do when you find someone you don’t know…?
INTRODUCE yourself.
“Hi, my name is Hal Seed. Have we met before?” Once you’ve introduced yourself, ask the other person questions. That gives them the chance to talk, and you the opportunity to learn more about them.
NEVER sit alone. This is the Eleventh Commandment. Once you’ve introduced yourself, say, “I’m going into the sanctuary now. Can I invite you to sit with me?”
ENGAGE in conversation. During the greeting time, you’ll meet some people around you. Once the church service is over, engage them in conversation – once again, by asking questions, not by talking about yourself.
USE the RU New Café. Once a month, we hold a free lunch for newcomers. Anyone can come, as long as they are new, or bring someone who’s new. So once you’ve engaged in conversation, invite them to come to the next RU New Café. We also encourage everyone to bring the friends they have brought to church to the RU New Café.
PRACTICE the 3/10 Rule. The 3/10 Rule is: talk with three people you don’t know during the first ten minutes after the service. Most of us want to talk with our friends, but if our friends have been coming for awhile, they’ll still be here ten minutes after church. Whereas all the newcomers will be gone in the first ten minutes unless someone engages them in conversation.
The LINE-UP strategy has served us well. You will have to start a monthly lunch to implement it fully, so you may need to shorten your acrostic to LINE until you get that in place. But add the UP as soon as possible.
3. Talk about how friendly you are.
No doubt you’ve heard about “self-fulfilling prophecy”. It’s the idea that what you believe will happen is more likely to happen, because you expect it to. You’ve probably also heard of the “Mirror Image,” which is the idea that how other people see you is how you tend to see yourself.
Jesus used this phenomenon when he gave Simon the new name “Peter.” He was saying, “You may not think of yourself this way yet, but I see you as a rock, so I’m going to start calling you Peter” (which means “rock” in Aramaic).
Now, honestly, I believe that New Song Community Church is one of the friendliest churches in the world.
And one reason we are is because we tell ourselves that we are. Every weekend, just after the greeting time, the person giving announcements begins by saying, “I hope by now you’re discovering that New Song is one of the friendliest churches in the world.” We script this right into the announcements.
Three months after we began saying it, a lady in the membership class said to me, “I kept coming back because this really is one of the friendliest places in the world.” We’ve been saying it ever since.
4. Upgrade your Greeting Team.
If your church is like most, your Greeting Team is largely comprised of older, introverted males. Why? Because these guys don’t have kids at home anymore, which means it’s not hard for them to get to church a few minutes early.
Often, introverts volunteer for the Greeting Team because they feel a little uncomfortable at the beginning of the service. Filling the role of Greeter helps them fit in.
First time guests always ask the unspoken question, “Are there people here like me?” If your first line of greeters is a homogenous group of older males, most of your first time guests’ initial answers will be, “No.”
Upgrade your Greeting Team by adding a few younger people – both male and female. Remind them to smile, be friendly but not accosting, and to show sincere interest in everyone, especially newcomers.
5. Give your people incentive to invite others.
Most of your people live busy lives. They love coming to church, but rarely think about inviting others just because it’s not on the top of their to-do lists.
We have found that people really will invite friends if they know that what they’re inviting them to is going to be relevant, really good, and won’t embarrass them or their friends. So a couple of times a year, we offer exceptional opportunities to invite friends. We call these opportunities Church Campaigns.
Church Campaigns are the most effective strategy we’ve found for reaching the lost of our community. Next week I’ll describe them for you.
Taking Action
There are a lot of these this week, but they don’t have to be time-consuming. Put them on your to-do list and check them off one at a time.
Assignment 1
Make a note to include being friendly in your Capturing God’s Heart sermon series, or do a week or two of sermons on it.
Assignment 2
Adapt and improve LINE-UP for your setting and decide when and how you will teach it to your church.
Assignment 3
Pray about who/how/when/where and whether to start an RU New Café, or a newcomers desert, or something that shows hospitality to newcomers and connects them with your core.
Assignment 4
Adopt or adapt our “I hope by now you’re discovering that our church is one of the friendliest churches in the world” announcement script and ask your announcements people to memorize and use it every week.
Assignment 5
Evaluate and upgrade your Greeting Team as you are able.
1,000 blessings!
Hal
Need to Catch Up?
Get the lessons you missed here:
- Why Some Pastors Make a Bigger Difference
- The Prayer that Changes Everything
- You are Not Alone when Hearts are Cold
- What Everybody Ought to Know About Building Momentum Through Preaching
Hal Seed is the founding and lead pastor of New Song Community Church in Oceanside, California. Get more resources and equipping for leading a better church at PastorMentor.com.
If a friend forwarded this email to you, you can sign up to get all eleven free Momentum Bootcamp lessons delivered to your inbox.
Related: Do you want to reach your community and grow your church?