Is your church ready for new members? New members bring fresh perspectives and more community to your church. But if you've been trying to connect with new congregants without much success, it might be time to switch up your strategy. In this article, we'll share six effective ideas to connect with more people and grow your ministry. Read on!
Outreach is an ongoing challenge for most churches. Many churches hold the same outreach activities over and over, often because of tradition or because other churches have had success with them. This can lead to boredom at best and, at worst, losing out on connecting with new members.
If your church is struggling to reach out to new potential members in the community, it’s time to consider changing your outreach activities. Building strong relationships in your community is an important part of successful church outreach. Events are a great way to introduce more people to your church.
Tried-and-tested ideas such as bake sales can quickly feel stale, especially if they’ve been a regular staple in your church fundraising plans. Taking a community approach to your outreach can bring better results for your church.
First, let’s look at some basics about church outreach.
Before you begin outreach, set some SMART goals for what you hope to achieve.
SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based. Use our SMART goal setting worksheet to help you establish your outreach outcomes.
Examples of SMART goals for church outreach events include:
Your SMART goals can inform your outreach ideas and make it more likely you’ll achieve them. Aim to be as specific as you can when setting your SMART outreach goals. You’ll find it easier to track your progress and determine whether you’re achieving your goals.
If you’re hoping to attract non-members to your outreach events, consider holding some of them outside of your church.
If non-members are invited by one of your church members, they may feel more enthusiastic about first attending an outreach event if it’s in a neutral location.
Whether you want to sell tickets or allow people to come to your event for free, an online events page is a great way to spread the word about your outreach event.
Donorbox Events makes creating and sharing an event page super easy. Customize the event page with images, content, and video, add multiple ticket tiers, set a deadline for the event, accept donations from the ticketing form, refund amounts in full, and even embed the form in your website (& much more!). Here’s a guide to help you get started.
Is your church struggling to come up with new ideas for outreach activities? Instead of falling back on outreach events that haven’t worked well in the past, focus your efforts on offering value to the local community and building your church’s reputation amongst local demographics.
Sponsoring a classroom at a local school is a great way for your church to build trust in the community.
It’s probably not going to bring people to your congregation right away but over time, it can create a lot of goodwill for your church.
There are likely plenty of people in the community who are struggling with anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems.
If they aren’t already members of your church, they may not immediately think of you as a source of support. Even those who are members may feel unable to speak openly about their situation.
Mental health outreach can bridge this gap and address needs within the community.
You can host a mental health outreach group at your church. Emphasize that it is a safe and non-judgmental place to discuss mental health. Many people fear being judged if they open up about their mental health. They will feel welcome in a setting that openly embraces mental health conversations.
Getting involved in a literacy program for young families is another way to reach out to this demographic.
You don’t need to teach children to read — put the focus on encouraging them to read instead through dedicated sessions.
Hosting a reading group in your church can make reading a fun activity for children — and adults too!
Reaching out to families in the community is an essential part of church outreach. Helping families strengthen their relationships is a great way to form a favorable impression.
Offer to babysit for couples in your congregation and the community. This can enable them to go out on a date night and feel closer to each other.
Many families can’t afford to hire a babysitter regularly. They will most likely appreciate the opportunity to secure free childcare for the evening.
Extending your babysitting offer to the community (including non-members) builds a lot of goodwill and may lead to non-members joining your congregation later on.
Pro tip: Ensure that volunteers providing babysitting services have relevant background checks. This gives families in the community extra peace of mind that their children are safe and well while they’re not home. Gaining this type of trust from local families can paint your church in a very positive light and increase the potential for gaining new members.
If you have a visual set-up in your church and a reasonable amount of space, use it to host a family movie night.
You can reach out to families who aren’t already part of your congregation and may not otherwise attend your church. The idea of a family movie night also makes your church feel less daunting and intimidating for a non-member who may be visiting you for the first time.
Pick a theme for each movie night. This opens up the potential for discussions around the theme in question. Pick a movie that is uplifting and appeals to both adults and children.
If the event is a big hit, consider making it a regular event at your church — fortnightly or monthly, for example.
If you secure a sizeable attendance on the first attempt, consider moving the location to a local theater if your church doesn’t have enough capacity.
Promote your family movie night on your church website, social media channels, and email communications with members. The local newspaper and radio station may also be interested in helping to promote it — especially if there’s a unique angle.
Create a Facebook event for your church’s family movie night. This makes it easy for members of your church to invite their friends and family and gives your church plenty of organic promotion for the event. You can also create an online event for the movie night and sell tickets. The ticket pricing depends on your strategy. If your focus is on outreach, keep it low and affordable for all.
Donorbox helps you create an online event page and add unlimited ticket levels. Plus, use promo codes to boost ticket sales and get more people interested in your event. Check out our Events feature and the endless possibilities of raising revenue and boosting outreach with it.
You can also produce flyers, posters, or postcards to send to families in the community or put up in local cafes, grocery stores, and other places that local families are likely to go. These can be easily mocked up on Canva by a staff member or volunteer.
If your chosen movie isn’t a very well-known one, consider using a brief trailer or clip in your promotion to build interest.
Pro tip: Look at whether your church will need to secure a license to show films. Learn more about how to host a movie night in this blog.
If your church has the facilities, set up a mini coffee shop and offer to make tea, coffee, and cold drinks for the community.
More churches are doing this and finding success.
Your most expensive outlay would likely be for a coffee machine and a blender (if you’ll be offering frappuccinos, smoothies, or juices). Don’t skimp on the quality of the coffee — great coffee will be one of the main reasons why people visit your facilities, after all!
Pro tip#1: While you’ll need high-quality equipment, this doesn’t have to be brand new. You can buy used options that will lower the costs of setting up. A good espresso machine will likely be the exception to this since repairs can be costly if the parts aren’t of good quality.
This is also a great way to raise funds for your church since you can charge a modest amount for drinks. The funds raised can be put back into ministries or used to fund outreach activities.
Setting up coffee shop facilities in your church is a fun way to raise your profile in the community. If people enjoy spending time there, it increases the potential for starting conversations around faith.
Whatever type of outreach you choose to do, offer value to the community, and look to build trust. Where possible, try not to put the “ask” for donations at the front of your outreach, or your church fundraising activities in general.
If your church has a reputation for caring for the needs of the community, the members of your community are more likely to attend your events. You should also check out these Christian fundraising ideas to inspire more creativity in your team.
Here at Donorbox, we’re helping churches like yours raise more funds, create membership campaigns, sell tickets online, and manage donor data with our dedicated church fundraising pillar, Donorbox MinistryMatters. Learn more in this short video, and check out all of our features.
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Raviraj heads the sales and marketing team at Donorbox. His growth-hacking abilities have helped Donorbox boost fundraising efforts for thousands of nonprofit organizations.
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