We’ve covered A LOT of material in the last few weeks. How are you doing?
Every pastor I know wants his church to grow and reach its community.
Jesus wasn’t kidding when he promised Peter and Andrew that if they followed him, he would make them fishers of men. Read what he did with them as soon as they signed on (Mt. 4:23-25).
Skills, actions, and prayer are required to draw people to Jesus.
Today you’re over three weeks into your “Lord, I don’t ask you for much today. I just ask that you give me your heart for lost people, and to infect my people with that heart as well” prayer. I wish I could hear what you’re feeling and seeing these days.
Sometimes my heart hardens back up, so I go through the ninety days again. At about day forty, I find myself very spiritually sensitive to lost people. I hope you’re “feelin’ it” that way these days.
Take a minute to ask the Lord to clear a space of time and speak to you as you read through this week’s material.
How Churches Grow
It took me a long time to figure out that churches grow in surges.
When we started New Song, I expected to add three to four people a week – every week.
It doesn’t happen like that. Growing churches tend to add a bunch and lose a few, add a bunch and lose a few. Most of the time those surges are around seasonal events, like New Years or back-to-school time.
If we can cooperate with the normal way the Holy Spirit tends to grow his church, I think we’re on the right track.
Good church campaigns cooperate with this [super]natural way of growth. A flood of newcomers attend the campaign, then many of them stick around and become members of the body.
Ramping Up for a Campaign
In a sense, everything you’ve done over the last few weeks has been part of your ramp-up for an outreach-oriented church campaign.
The process is a process of building momentum: a great campaign starts with the pastor, moves to the leaders, envelopes the congregation, and touches the community around you.
A great campaign starts with the pastor. You want to choose a campaign at least seven weeks before you launch it. Your job is to prayerfully select the series. For an outreach-oriented campaign, you must choose a topic that has appeal to Christians and pre-Christians alike.
There is a ton of helpful information in this post. You’ll need it all as you prepare for your campaign. But unless you’re within nine weeks of launching your campaign, you don’t need it all now. I encourage you to read quickly through what follows, to get the big picture, and come back to it for the details as you get closer to campaign kick-off.
Launch Countdown
Six Weeks Ahead
1. Privately, think through what you will do AFTER the campaign is over. It is the job of the leader to mind the future. What incentive will you offer newcomers to persuade them to keep coming once the campaign is over? Is there a “next hill” you can encourage the congregation to take as soon as the series is over, so they stay engaged and look to the future? Pray about this and plan accordingly.
2. A “next hill” could be a service project, great guest speaker, fun event, enticing sermon series, or something else you feel will positively build the church.
3. Meet with your leadership team and share the vision. What are we doing, and why? Why are you excited about it? What will it look like? What needs to happen to make it successful? Show them a copy of the book you’ll be using. If you have them on hand already, encourage your leaders to buy and begin reading so they’ll be one step ahead of the campaign when it launches.
4. Begin recruiting as many leaders as possible to lead small groups (or Sunday school classes) during the campaign. Orchestrate who will be leading a group, where, and when, so you can publicize it.
5. Coordinate with your youth ministry. Should they participate in the campaign? If so, what will that look like for them? How will the youth encourage their unchurched friends to attend? How will they/we make the series relevant to teens?
Five Weeks Ahead
6. Share the vision with the congregation.
7. Enlist a Prayer Team of three to five people to meet and pray regularly about the fruit of this campaign.
8. Keep them updated as plans develop, so they can pray intelligently.
9. Have someone design a Facebook page for the series.
Four Weeks Ahead
10. Make a list of facility items that need to be spruced up and enlist a team to make the improvements – just like you would if you were inviting guests to your home a few weeks from now.
11. Plan the preaching/teaching schedule.
12. Begin selling the books. This will get people excited. Some won’t invite their friends without knowing what they’re getting into. This enables them to “try before they buy.”
13. Meet with the worship/program team and design what you’d like to have happen during each of the services in this campaign.
14. Meet with your small group/Sunday school teachers to go over what is expected of them during the campaign.
15. Start taking sign-up for small groups. Make this as easy as possible. Print your line up of group or class opportunities in your bulletin and let them register for one on their Connection Card. Also, have a table in the lobby where they can ask questions and sign up. Let them know through your church-wide email, or create a registration form on your website.
16. Ask your people to begin praying specifically for four friends they will invite to the campaign. Insert either two printed cards or two blank 3×5 cards in your bulletin. During the service, ask everyone to take a minute and prayerfully write down the names of four (or more) people they will invite. Put all four names on each of the cards. Turn in one with the offering, and keep the other one as a prayer reminder. Give the cards to your Prayer Team to pray over.
17. Encourage your people to use the Facebook campaign page to invite start inviting their friends.
Three Weeks Ahead
18. Provide invitational tools to your members. One of the least expensive tools I know of is “Invite Cards” from Outreach, Inc. They’re business-sized cards you can buy and print your specific information on the back. Outreach has actually designed a special card for The God Questions, Fireproofing Your Marriage, and To Save A Life, so you can order those specifically, if you’re doing one of those series.
19. If you’re able to invest a little money in advertizing, I recommend you send a postcard. Several companies produce these. Again, I’m most familiar with Outreach Inc., who has a ton of cards to choose from, or will custom-design one for you if you’d like.
20. I encourage churches to sell books for their campaign, rather than give them away. People are invested in what they invest in, so if you give them a free book, they will treat it like it’s free. But if they pay for it, they will value it. You can provide scholarships for those who can’t afford them. We try to buy books for under $10, then sell them for $10, and use the difference to help pay for the advertizing.
21. I strongly encourage you to invest in a street-side banner for your campaign. If you know a company that makes them, great. If not, Outreach makes these as well. Whoever you purchase from will require a few week’s notice, so plan accordingly. Put your banner up this week (or sooner). Keep the banner simple enough that people can read it as they drive past. Make sure to put dates, service times, and the church website on it. You should consider ordering banners for the lobby, too.
22. If you want to be really creative, decorate your building and/or your people around the campaign’s theme. Some churches buy God Questions t-shirts for their ushers, tech, and Sunday school teachers. This sets an immediate mood of excitement for the church. We recently did a series called, “Becoming a Superhero.” We dressed six guys in superhero costumes and had them up on our roof, posing like superheroes and waving at people as they arrived. We were surprised how much the church talked about the superheroes – and loved the series.
23. Continue group sign-ups.
24. Continue to encourage people to invite friends from the Facebook campaign page.
25. Put two more Prayer Cards in each bulletin and repeat that announcement for anyone who wasn’t there or didn’t turn in a card last week.
26. Vision cast for the campaign during your message. Forecast the messages in the series, paint a picture of what God might do, and how good it will feel if friends come and become part of God’s family during the series.
Two Weeks Ahead
27. Meet with your leaders to review any necessary details.
28. Mail postcards eight to ten days before the campaign begins. Mail carriers have a five-day window in which they can deliver bulk mail. Ideally, your postcards will land between Tuesday and Thursday of the week of your campaign. Expect about a ½% return on your postcards. So, if you mail 10,000, expect to see 50 visitors.
29. Continue group sign-ups. Encourage your people to sign up their friends as soon as they can.
30. Encourage people to continue to pray for the four friends on their card.
31. Keep your Prayer Team updated and motivated.
32. Do more vision casting during your sermon.
One Week Ahead
33. Meet with your first-impression, hospitality and usher teams. Make sure they are ready to care for newcomers.
34. Make sure you have enough people to make newcomer phone calls within 48 hours of next weekend’s services.
35. Make sure you are ready to write hand-written notes to each guest, inviting them back for the rest of the series.
36. Make sure your building is as ready as possible to welcome newcomers.
37. Ideally, preach a pre-campaign message this week. The God Questions Campaign Kit contains a message called, “Opening Doors and Stepping Through Them,” that’s designed to motivate members to bring their friends next weekend.
Week One of the Campaign
38. Welcome guests, and encourage them to sign-up for a small group today.
39. Preach well!
40. Be sure guests fill out Connection Cards before they leave. You might decide to offer free books to guests, as a way of thanking them for attending. If you do so, you could say, “We’d like to give you a free copy of a book today. If you’ll give us your Connection Card, please take a copy as our gift to you.”
41. Forecast next week’s message.
42. Invite people to your version of the RU New Café, which you will want to hold on the second Sunday of the campaign.
You now have six weeks for you and your leaders to get to know these newcomers well enough so that they will want to remain a part of the church when the campaign is over. Plan and work accordingly.
Weeks Two and Three of the Campaign
43. Same as above.
44. Hold an RU New Café.
Weeks Four and Five of the Campaign
45. Close your small groups so that people in them can bond. Announce that your groups are closed, but that new groups will be starting for your next series three weeks from now.
46. Begin to talk about the challenge or next hill that will begin once the campaign is over.
Week Six of the Campaign
47. Invite people to your next series by spelling out the benefits they’ll receive from it. (Note: don’t expect that everyone will return, but pray and work like they will.)
48. Email your whole church with the result of the campaign and encourage everyone to be here next weekend for the start of the next series.
After the Campaign
Everyone involved with the campaign may feel tired. When Elijah saw the miracle of fire on Mt. Carmel, he was tired. But before letting down, he prayed fervently that God wo uld send rain. The principle here is: when you experience a miracle, pray fervently for a second miracle. Then rest. (1 Kings 18-19)
Assignments
Keep working ON your ministry as well as IN your ministry by
- praying your thirty word prayer,
- moving forward in inspiring your leaders,
- in your planning for your “Heart” series,
- and in planning your first church campaign.
Get The Ultimate Checklist for a Church Campaign.
Next Time
Next week we’ll talk about helping your people become great inviters.
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
- The Secret to Attracting People to Your Church
- 9 Ways to Build Momentum with a Church Campaign
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.
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Related: Do you want to reach your community and grow your church?