Are you looking to draw more members to your community of worship?
Knowing how to grow your church can be difficult. Once you’ve built a community, it can reach a plateau. From there, you need to make a conscious effort to reach out to new people and draw them in.
In this article, we’ll tell you how to do that.
How to Grow Your Church and Build a Community
Growing a church takes work. Use these strategies to build yours.
1. Make a Great First Impression
Pastors and church leaders should take the time to personally introduce themselves to all new members. Shake hands, memorize people’s names, and make them feel welcome.
2. Be Active on Social Media
There are around 209 million social media users in the United States. That’s a huge pool of people you could potentially bring into your church.
Create Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages for your church to start connecting with new people. There, you can post about events, activities, and services that you hold.
3. Get Your Branding Right
Image is everything. That’s why you need to make sure you have a great church logo.
You need branding that makes you instantly recognizable, as well as projecting a message and image that encapsulates what you do.
4. Make it Easy to Get Involved
Lots of people want to get involved with their local churches, but just don’t know how.
During your services, list ways that people can engage with your community. Provide various avenues for people to engage, and they will.
5. Host Community Events
Put on regular events to create engagement.
These don’t have to be bible study programs or fundraisers. They can also include dinner parties, Easter egg hunts, concerts, sporting events and children’s church parties.
6. Vary Your Services
You could branch out by starting different types of services for different target groups.
For example, older members might like something more traditional, while millennials may prefer more modern services. Play around with different times, sizes and types of service and see what works.
7. Recognize and Reward
If you reward people for being active members of the community, everyone wins. They’ll be more motivated, and so will others. Give people recognition for their good work by celebrating it publicly.
8. Update Your Website
A website will be the first point of contact for many new members. Make sure it’s fast and up-to-date, with everything they need to know.
9. Switch Guilt for Motivation
Some churches use guilt or shame as a way to encourage members to be more active in the community. However, this can have the opposite effect.
Instead, use motivation, encouragement and positive reinforcement. As they say, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar!
10. Reach Out
When people become distant, reach out to them. Find out why they’ve disconnected and what you can do to draw them back in, letting them know you care.
Use Your People Skills
To know how to grow your church, you need to have the right social skills.
You have to know how to engage with people the right way, build relationships, and provoke positive conversation with the people around you.
To find out how to do this, read our post on essential social skills.
