Category: Marketing

Why a parachurch may get more young people than your church

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In a recent post I wrote about the 10% limit to the size of any youth group compared to the Sunday congregation.  But I bet that some of you know a youth ministry that breaks that 10% rule.  What I have discovered is that some parachurch groups are able to recruit far more members than the 10% limit.  Having worked in and with parachurch groups, there are a few key factors which enable them to reach more young people than a local church can.

Firstly what do I mean by a parachurch group?  In this context I am talking about any agency within the Church that has a specific mission to minister only to young people.  Put it another way I am talking about ministries that don’t belong to “full service” local churches.  These parachurch groups have the specific mission of meeting the needs of young people and usually they have a particular style.  These groups are a valuable part of our Church; they have a specific Charism to a specific group of people.

A few examples might be:

  1. Charismatic prayer groups
  2. Campus based ministries
  3. Market place ministries, some that meet in Pubs
  4. Social Justice groups

So why are some parachurch groups able to recruit more members than many local churches? Here are four reasons that a parachurch group might be able to get more young people than you.

  1. Narrow the focus – many parachurch groups are able to focus on one or two key activities and do them well.  When a ministry only has few things to focus on they are able to tailor everything in the ministry to these one or two activities.  In contrast a full service local church has about 20-30 groups and ministries running.  Often the resources of a local church are spread thinly across a wide range of activities.
  2. Like-minded people – there is an old saying that like attracts like; a parachurch can attract young people with a common interest.  It is easier to attract a group of like-minded people than it is to keep the interest of everyone.  Often the local church is trying to cater to the needs of everyone in their community.
  3. Independence brings freedom – many parachurch groups are able to stay independent of the mechanics of regular church councils and committees.  I was once part of a parachurch group that met every Monday night and we could plan what we wanted with the leaders whenever we needed.  In contrast when I was part of full service local church the parish council met monthly and you needed a months’ notice to get an agenda item on there, meaning it could be two months before we could make a decision.
  4. Larger drawing area – usually a parachurch will draw members from a bigger geographical area than the local suburban church.  A parachurch might host an event for 100 young people that come from 10 suburbs where as you are trying to host an event for the young people in your suburb.

Before finishing I want to add that I am not against parachurch groups, they are vital part of the Body of Christ.  Given that I have been a part of both parachurch groups and local churches, I wanted to pass on some of the reasons why the parachurch groups might get more young people than you can get at your local church.

There are many positives of connecting young people to a local church; the main reason is that the local church is intergenerational.  In a local church young people learn to connect with a wider experience of the Body of Christ.

The real lesson for both parachurch groups and local churches is to focus on what God has called them to do rather than comparing each other.  I hope this helps you in your situation.

Please leave a comment

Creating a Welcoming Church

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Going beyond “putting out the welcome mat”

On Saturday I attended the opening year leadership training at my local church.  Almost 150 people turned up to hear how we can be a more welcoming church.  I will get to what we talked about later in the post but I want to share three stories with you first.

  1. A Church – On Sunday I was speaking to a friend of my who is new to their local church and I asked him how it was going.  He said that whilst they were making every effort to keep going it was getting harder to stay at this church because nobody talks to them.  This particular Sunday not a single person had spoken to them yet there were many families attending just like them.
  2. Hardware shop – Whilst I still had the thoughts of Saturday and the experience of my friend going through my mind, on Monday I went to my local hardware mega store – Bunnings.  When I got to the front door the lady at the front said “hello and welcome to Bunnings.”  Whilst I thought it was nice I knew that that was her job.  As I went around the store every single employee stopped to say hello to me and asked me if I needed help.  What impressed me the most was the welcome I got from people who were not officially on welcome.
  3. My Church – on sunday at my church I exchanged the sign of peace with a mother I met on Family camp, spoke to a doctor I had never met after the service, had coffee with one of the dads from our small group and on the way out said hello to a stranger who I thought was coming for the next service.

Why is it that I get a warm welcome at my local Hardware store and nobody talks to my friend at church?  If the experience of my friend was a once off I wouldn’t have to write this article but the fact that many people feel unwelcome in many churches and in many denominations tells us that we have a welcome problem in Church.

It is important to remember that in this era of front door greeters at every department store, people are immune to the person on the front door.  Many churches put all their welcome effort into the person on the front door yet the people in the pews keep to themselves.  Our churches have to training everyone to have a spirit of welcome not just the people rostered on to welcome.

Here are three things that I learnt from Michael Harvey (creator of Back to Church Sunday) at our church training on Saturday:

  1. Inviting – many churches are not inviting yet they say they are welcoming.  We have to go beyond hoping that someone will walk through the front door on Sunday; we have to ask them to come on Sunday.  Your church needs to encourage people to feel welcome at your church before they have even made it into the car park.  People should feel welcome at your church because they were invited to a service.
  2. Welcoming – once people invite their friends to church the entire church must be welcoming.  It is not up to the welcome team or the greeters or the priest to do the welcome.  People are waiting for someone in their pew to say hello.  Create opportunities for people to talk before the service starts, during the exchange of peace, after the sermon or homily and after the last song when the service is finished.  People can come to a quiet church any day of the week other than Sunday; Sunday is the time for community interaction not private devotions.
  3. Befriending – if people get invited to come to church, the come along and feel a sense of welcome but nobody ever makes friends with them then they won’t stay very long in your church.  As important as welcome is befriending new people is even more important if you want them to stay in church longer than a couple of weeks.  If you want to disciple new people that come to your church then you have to befriend them and be in relationship with them.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in creating a welcoming church; it won’t happen over night and you have to keep working on it.

____________________

About Michael Harvey – In 2004 Back to Church Sunday was birthed and Michael started to work using his own time and money with churches throughout the UK and eventually throughout the english speaking world. He has spoken to thousands of church leaders in his Unlocking the Growth Seminars and has to date seen thousands of Christians mobilised to invite, resulting in hundreds of thousands of accepted invitations. Check out his website or read his blog articles on invitation

markoffaith.net

markoffaith, MarkofFaith, mark of faith, Mark of Faith, mrmarkmcdonald, Mark McDonald

Print Marketing … on a budget

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It is that time of the year when our letter box is full of church marketing.  A number of churches in my area have dropped off invitations to the Christmas events.  Some churches have invitations to carols, nativity plays and of course their Christmas services.  Some of the invitations are glossy professionally printed cards whilst others make some amateur home printing mistakes.  In this post I want to share with you some tips I have learnt about doing print marketing on a budget; meaning you are printing hundred of postcards in your office.

One thing I learnt about professional printing is that they can do anything you want … for a price.  Perhaps you don’t have the money to send the flyer to a printer so you are going to print your flyers “in house”.  Maybe you have a photocopier, maybe a colour printer or maybe you have a black and white printer.  What ever your situation you are limited by the printer you have and the time to cut up hundreds of items.  But there are some tricks to get around your printer to disguise that they were printed in your office.  I suggest two types of print marketing, posters and postcards.

  1. The Postcard – this will be your base print marketing because you can put it in the hand or mailbox of everyone you want to invite.  The easiest way to do this “in house” is to print four cards to an A4 page.  This is just a matter of repeating the same card four times on the one page.  Here are a few tips –
    1. Never do a border – if you print a border on your card then you will spend hours trying to get your margins the same on all four images once they are printed.  If you remove the border then it is easier to cut up the four cards without it looking off center.
    2. More detail than a poster – on a postcard you should include more details so that the person will keep the card.  If it is too basic they will throw it in the bin and jump on your website.  You want them to keep the card.
  2. The Poster – you want to saturate your church with posters of your events and an A4 poster can be affective.  If there is room it can be more striking to place four posters together on a notice board.  The poster should do two things:
    1. Draw in someone’s attention – the poster should turn heads not blend in.  Find an image that will draw people in.
    2. Send them to a website for more details – some posters can be too overloaded with information.  A poster shouldn’t be a larger version of your postcard.  Never include the price on the poster as you want them to check out all the details on your Facebook page or website.

Here are just a few other thoughts that will help you when you have no budget and have to print in-house:

  1. White edge – most of us printer that can’t print to the edge; it leaves a white border of 3-4mm.  So design your poster or postcard with this in mind.  You can design your card to look like a Polaroid as this has a white border.  You can also fade the edge of your image to white.  Black backgrounds don’t look good with a white border so avoid these if you don’t want to cut each item.
  2. Graphics – you can use a lot of good images off Microsoft clipart, type in backgrounds to see a range of images to build your poster on.  Go for their new items such as vectors or photos.
  3. Fonts – a good font can make all the difference.  You can download hundreds of fonts for free from many websites.  Try about 20-30 fonts before you print, one font might take it from an average design to a great design.
  4. News print – some churches have used the news print style to cover up for the basic printer they are using.  The retro, rustic or newsprint styles all look better on cheaper printers than trying to do the high gloss corporate look in the office.
  5. Work with the imperfections of your printer.  If your printed always misses a spot then don’t make that spot where the key information is.

Whilst it might be a little late for Christmas, you have some tips to improve your news years marketing. When you are launching your programs for 2012 you have some design tips to help you.

Perhaps you have made some mistakes in the past and have learnt some trick that others would love to learn from.  Please consider sharing them with us by leaving a comment