In our last article in this series on Church Growth we posed the question, “Who are you trying to reach?”. We now need to deal with the follow-up question “How will you reach them?”. This is the question that everyone would like answered. How do we attract new people to the church? How do we get people talking in our communities about the church? In order to try and answer this question, we take the results of our last question, (Who are we trying to reach?) and we start by going to prayer. Everything must start with PRAYER!

One of the big issues in Church Growth consulting is that there is never one answer that works everywhere. What works in one place doesn’t necessarily work in another. That is why trying to cookie cutter what someone else is doing successfully usually doesn’t work. What works for Rick Warren or Bill Hyblels may not work for you. In prayer you need to ask God for leading and ideas for your area and your target group(s).

Perhaps our story will help. As we were wrestling through this issue some years ago (our church had an attendance of 125 - 150, but it was not growing) we spent time just seeking the Lord and asking for direction. Out of that season we felt lead to make some changes. What did we change? We added a new earlier service to attract people who might not want to be in Church until noon every Sunday. We live in a fishing town and a lot of people want to get out on the water. By providing a service that was over by 9:00 we attracted some new people to church. (We have since added a Saturday evening service for the same reason). Multiple services are a great tool for church growth, you don’t have to wait until you NEED to go to a second service to start one. In adding a service we tweaked the length of our services and we learned to start and finish on time. We now have four services on the weekend. One on Saturday night (7:00 pm) and three on Sunday morning (8:00, 9;30, and 11:00). Of the four services, only the 9:30 service is packed. The other services are comfortable and growing.

We also began to do more outreach by putting together servant evangelism projects. We did and do free car washes where we set up on the highway at a local bank and wash cars for free. We do not take donations of any kind. This always gets people talking and usually brings people to church the next day. We go to the local strip mall and give away candy or water or coffee or soda. Servant evangelism projects are a great way to get your people involved in the process.

We also added something to our services that is not something I hear about others doing. We serve a meal at all of our services. We don’t charge for this or ask or accept donations. It is just there. What kind of a meal? On Sunday’s between the 8:00 and 9:30 and again between the 9:30 and 11:00 we serve a breakfast of scrambled eggs, potatoes, and sausage. We also have bagels, poptarts, coffee and cappuccino. The people love it and it adds a measure of fellowship and connection between the services. On Saturday evenings we have pasta with meatballs, salad and rolls. Serving food and not charging for it gets people talking. If the church grows this idea pays for itself pretty quickly. We spend about 10-15% of our income on making this work. No one said church growth would be without cost.

Has it worked? Our church now has a regular attendance of 400 - 600 on the weekends. The numbers vary because we get people who are only here in the winter and spring, but our slower times still see 400 people in attendance each week. Our church is in a town of 4,000 people and there only about 20,000 in driving distance. Every week, we have local people who are checking out the church for the first time. Every week! We have a lot of people who come into the church that are not yet believers. We are blessed to see many of them make decisions for the Lord and get baptized. For the last 5 years we have seen at least 50 people a year get baptized. In a small town. that is a significant number. We have had many more people than that make first time decisions for Christ. Best of all, we are seeing peoples lives changed. For me, that is what church growth is all about. Advancing the Kingdom of God one person at a time!