All Posts Tagged With: "servant evangelism"
Acts of Kindness Make an Impact
I came across a fascinating video the other day by “Penn” of Penn and Teller. Penn is an avowed atheist but in this video he shares about an act of kindness that was shown to him by a believer and it obviously impacted him. He says something that is really thought provoking. He says, (and I am paraphrasing), “If you believe you have the truth about eternal life, if you don’t share it with people, then you must really hate them”. He actually says some things that everyone who is a believer needs to hear about how important sharing our faith is. I will include the video here on the Church Growth Consulting site for you:
I believe the video is very thought provoking. I would enjoy reading your comments so be sure to add them below.
The Problem with Church Signs
While a church sign that allows you to put in new information every week might be a good way to get people to find or recognize your church, the problem with a lot of church signs is that they produce the opposite result. It might seem like a good idea at the time of purchase. You think about some of the clever and witty things you have to say and you get caught up in the thoughts of how this new sign is going to help bring new people into the church. The reality is, there are only about six or seven really clever and witty things to put on the sign. Then what? The sign becomes another burden. What will we say this week? Now, you not only have a sermon to write, you need to think of something clever for the sign. You search for ideas on the Internet and quickly find out that you have already used all of the good slogans and sayings. Before long the signs begin to say things that are ridiculous and even often offensive. There are some weeks when I drive by a church sign that makes me feel like I need to apologize on behalf of believers everywhere.
Here is my official church growth consulting advice. Before you buy a sign, sit down and try and come up with 52 weeks of material for the sign. If you can do that, then a sign might work out for you. If you can’t, hire a sign painter to create an attractive sign that lists you service times and phone number. Take the money you save and invest in some servant evangelism outreaches. It will be a better use of your money. Don’t do this:
Does anyone think that a sign like the one above is going to draw people in to the church? How about this one:
Ultimately, the best church sign is the people of the church living life in such a way that the Kingdom of God is displayed through them.
Church Growth Question # 5
As we continue to help you think through the process of Church Growth we come to our fifth question, “How serious are you about church growth?”. Most churches and pastors would agree that a growing church is a good thing. But, have you really counted the cost? In order for a church to grow, you have to deal with a lot of change. When push comes to shove, no matter what people say, we really don’t like change. We don’t like it when somebody sits where we always sit as church. We don’t like it when the Pastor is not as accessible as he used to be. We don’t like it when it feels like we don’t know as many people at the church. As a Pastor, are you willing to do what it takes to help your church to grow? Multiple services? More delegating of responsibilities, more staff, more volunteers, more programs, bigger buildings? Don’t be surprised if somewhere along the journey you don;t look back fondly at the good ole days when the biggest ongoing problem was that there never seemed to be enough money. As your church grows, there will still never be enough money and you will have a lot more problems.
Still want to grow? Me, too. A growing church is generally a pretty helthy church. Healthy things grow! With all its problems a growing church provides an amazing adventure in the Kingdom of God. The initial question still stands, however, how serious are you about church growth? I remember thinking through this process some years ago in a discussion with Steve Sjogren. He gave me something to think about along these lines. At our church we are involved in servant evangelism on an ongoing basis. I encourage our people to do at least one act of kindness a day and in the doing to present a connect card (a card that basically says we are blessing them to demonstrate God’s love in a practical way, and gives a little information about the church and a phone number. Steve said that the phone number on the connect card shouldn’t be the church number, it should be the Pastor’s cell phone number. What??!!! How serious are you now?
It makes sense when you think about it. If you are investing the time and energy in doing outreach, and someone wants to talk to you, isn’t the Pastor the one who should get the call. You really don’t want someone calling and getting your answering machine. So, my cell phone number is on every connect card we give out. How many phone calls do I get? Not as many as I would like to get. Aren’t people always calling and asking for something? Sometimes. When they have legitimate needs I either try and help them or send them to somewhere they can get help. It provides some opportunities for prayer. What if somebody gets your number who is annoying or not quite right? If you get someone who is misusing your phone number, just add them into your phone book with a Do Not Answer name attached. If it shows up on your phone, don’t answer it. I also turn the phone off when I go to bed. Having my cell phone number on the cards has resulted in a lot of good contacts over the years. How serious are you?
Church Growth Question # 4
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!
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