As a pastor, I am always looking for new ideas for church growth. I am aware that not every approach works in every area. I have seen some ideas work and some not so much. I am sure you have probably experienced the same thing. Here are some the things that we are doing which seem to be working.

Ideas for Church Growth

• An Act of Kindness a Day or (AOK). I have written about this on this site already but it is having good results.
• Free Car Wash - We try to do 2 or 3 free car washes a year. We do not take any donations. These seem to always bring visitors to the church.
• Food Events - Every Thanksgiving we deep fry 40 turkeys and invite the community in for a free meal and concert. We do this the night before Thanksgiving. We never accept money for the event. This is another event that always brings us return visitors.
• Celebrate Recovery - A great ministry that attracts people. There is a need for recovery programs in every church. Celebrate Recovery comes out of Saddleback Community Church and is used world wide.
• Movie Night - A couple of times a year we get a license (A license costs 150 - 250 dollars from Swank Motion Pictures) so that we can promote a movie night. Prince Caspian is being released May 16th so on May 9th we will show The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We also provide free popcorn and bottles water.
• Free Blood Pressure Checks - We get a few of our nurses and we set up a table outside our local store with a sign that tells people we are doing free blood pressure checks. We get opportunities to pray for people and tell them about our church.
• Every October we do a Fall Festival and a concert. We give away mountains of candy, set up the sanctary like a carnival, have our worship team play, etc. This event has always brought us new families.
• We have done some mail out campaigns. I have mixed feelings about the results. I think that initially they were beneficial to develop some buzz in the community, but now the money can be used for more concentrated efforts. A mail out can get very expensive. I can attribute quite a few new people and conversions directly to some of our mail out campaigns.

I am always looking for new ideas. I would like to hear some of your ideas for church growth. Either comment on this article or use the Contact page. As new ideas come in I will happily pass them along. Blessings on your church growth efforts!