5 Keys for Church Leaders

Building a Strong, Vibrant, and Growing Church

Kevin Martin

• Publisher: Church Publishing
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9780898697957
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Iglesia cristiana

A practical guide to growing your parish that focuses on the congregants and community.

In this valuable church leadership resource, Kevin Martin examines the five aspects of congregational life that are key to the development and growth of a strong congregation. Based on the author's popular church growth seminar, The Five Critical Systems, the five keys to congregational growth are:

• Build the team
• Pay attention to generations
• Tend the two doors
• Keep healthy
• Raise the stewardship level

Martin takes the reader on the steps necessary to address each of these keys, whether your church is small and focused on growing or large and concerned with community and retention.

Third Key

TEND THE TWO DOORS

Chapter 7

JOINING THE PARADE

Lyle Schaller once described a congregation as a parade of people marching through time. Sometimes people join the parade. Other times people leave the parade. The total number of people in the parade at any moment is determined by these changes. Think of it this way: A parish averages two hundred people a Sunday and has done so for the past seven years. These are not the same two hundred people. If this parish is in a suburb, the annual rate of change could be close to 20 percent. This means each year forty people join the parade and forty people leave. This leads us to two simple truths:

• More people enter a growing church than leave.
• More people leave a declining church than enter.

We can call entering “the front door” and leaving “the back door.” To grow, a church must have a wider front door than back door. This is important because most leaders see their work as “stabilizing” the community. But a growing church is by definition “de-stabilized.”

Tending the Front Door

Most potential members decide within five minutes of arriving in your parking lot (provided you have one) if they will return for a second time. This tells us that greeting people early and greeting them well is absolutely essential for a growing church. When visiting a church, I like to see the following:

• Some prime parking spaces reserved for “Guests” or “Visitors.”
• Clear signs directing visitors to the main worship space, the nursery, restrooms, coffee (a hospitality area).
• “Men in Black” ushers replaced with families who greet people.
• An information table in the entryway with various items such as past newsletters and information on current ministries.
• A newcomer/visitor bag. In this put a coffee cup filled with Hershey’s Kisses (or something similar).
• Clergy who greet visitors before the service.
• A user-friendly bulletin and, in larger churches, a bulletin that contains most of the service.

After you greet people, you will want to follow up with them. A good target for retention is to aim at retaining 50 percent of your second-time visitors. Of course, to do this, you have to know when a person returns for the second time. I like to see the following done to help achieve a 50 percent retention rate:

1. Track each first-time visitor on a three-by-five visitor card and watch for the second-time visitor.
2. For a first-time visitor from out of the area, send a first-class letter that says, “Come back, make this your church home away from home.”
3. For in-the-area visitors, send a letter of greeting with an invitation to a newcomer event (these should be scheduled regularly — at least every other month). Invite them to the next newcomers class.
4. Keep in-the-area visitors on an “invite list” for the next year. Invite them to each special event, including Christmas and Easter celebrations.
5. For second-time visitors, no matter when the second visit occurs — after one week, one month, one year — have a member of the staff make a follow-up call. Determine:
   a. Interest
   b. Ways to connect (children, etc.)
6. Keep second-time visitors on the invite list until a connection is made or they ask to be removed from the mailing list.
7. Invite second-time visitors to an assessment interview at the church. Make connections to their interests, determine past church experience, and respond appropriately to their needs.
8. Have regularly scheduled newcomer events. Present the information over four or five sessions. When the sessions are completed, invite the attendees to other events. Invite them to join.
9. Have a liturgical acknowledgment of the presence of new members.
10. Send newcomers a stewardship letter that tells them how the church is funded and how they can contribute.
11. Acknowledge the new people at your church’s annual meeting.

Of course, we have been speaking just of greeting people. What about inviting them?

Chapter 8

INVITING PEOPLE

Word of Mouth

What are the best methods for inviting people to your congregation? Let’s review some very important points about the way people get invited to congregations and about advertising in general.

Without a doubt, the best method to reach potential church attendees is for people to spontaneously invite another person. “You should come to our church!” or “Why don’t you come to our church?” or even better, “Why don’t you attend church with us Sunday; we can come by and pick you up.”

One survey tells us that the average Episcopalian invites a person to church once every thirty-eight years. Of course, part of this is our natural Anglican reticence toward putting ourselves or our church forward. This, however, is not reason enough to explain our reluctance to spontaneously invite people to our church. Consider what we do in other parts of our life.

When the last movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out, my wife and I went to a midweek showing during the Christmas season. In the theater were hobbits, elves, and even a wizard — teenagers who came to the theater dressed like one of their favorite characters. During the final scenes, they cheered their heroes, standing and applauding as the evil Sauron fell. These young people did not have to be told to “share” with others. You could not stop them from sharing with others. It is only natural to share with others a book, movie, or CD that we have found inspiring. Why then don’t we share our church?

The truth is that church isn’t sharable. It has become predictable or boring. It isn’t inspiring. The sermons and music are not memorable. If this is true, what can we do about it? We can demand it. One of my seminary professors said it this way: “It is a sin to bore people!” John Wesley said to fellow preachers: “Set yourself on fire in the pulpit and the whole world will come to watch you burn.”

The Shining Moment

When I consult with congregations, I spend Sunday morning observing all the services and activities. Part of what I am looking for is the moment in which the particular congregation shines. Most churches have moments when they put their best foot forward. Sadly, a few churches I have observed have had no such moment. Who would come to such churches? Shine until folks want this to be shared with others. When I consult I often make suggestions to show a congregation how to let its best moments dominate. I also suggest that they stop doing what they don’t do well.

I once worked with a small congregation that had several shining moments. They were warm and welcoming. The rector was an engaging preacher who drew the congregation into the sermon in an interactive way by asking questions or allowing them to supply the punch line to stories. Where they did not shine was in the three-member choir that kept offering anthems from the Oxford Anthem Book. When asked for ways to make their service better, I responded, “Shoot the choir!” I went on to explain that the attempt to be an English cathedral choir robbed them of letting their strengths shine. It turned out that the choir members were relieved to end the poor music.

What about a small church with limited resources? My experience is that many small churches have a best moment that few large churches can really have. A small church can reach out like a warm family and make people feel genuinely welcomed and loved.

Every so often, I come across a spontaneously growing Episcopal church. I find that the members there really enjoy their common life together. They believe they have a wonderful, warm, and loving church. They feel that God is present with them in their liturgy, worship, and fellowship. Because they believe this, they spontaneously share this with others. Word of mouth remains the most effective recruitment tool for the local congregation. Without a doubt, the best growing churches have members who enthusiastically invite non-members to attend, and who do so far more than once every thirty-eight years!

To learn how to effectively invite others and increase attendance I recommend that leaders use Lyle Schaller’s 44 Ways to Increase Attendance. This is a must read for any greeter or hospitality group. I am a strong believer in the Special Sunday Event. Chapter 9 gives you details on how to put on a Special Sunday.

Advertising

We need to take a look at some important points about advertising. First, for advertising to work, it must be true. For example, you should not promise everyone that “we will be here for you!” when in fact you will not. You probably will not be there to pay the rent or the electricity when they need you. Before you place an ad in the local paper or put up a new sign, ask yourselves, “Is this true?”

Suppose that you are sitting in a sports bar watching a football game. During a break in the action, a commercial comes on. “Smith Ford has the best service department in the entire tri-state area,” the announcer proclaims. At that moment, a stranger leans back and says, “Oh yea, I had to take my car back five times and they still haven’t fixed it!” What is the effect of this remark? Even if you do not know this person, it is probably ten to one — negative advertising is ten times more powerful than that one positive comment. Furthermore, it will probably take ten more positive comments from others before the negativity of this remark is removed. What happens if you offer “a warm and friendly place where all are welcome” and a stranger passes through and is not greeted. This person is now potentially negative advertising.

Second, remember that advertising doesn’t create the need. Imagine you are sitting home with your fam...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• First Key: Build the Team
• Second Key: Pay Attention to the Generations
• Third Key: Tend the Two Doors
• Fourth Key: Keep the System Healthy
• Fifth Key: Raise the Stewardship Level
• Getting Started with the Five Keys