Lead Well

It’s VBS season and for many churches, the event is seen as an outreach. We want to get as many kids as possible through the door, show them the way to Jesus, and then hopefully get them to come back on Sunday. But when you put on outreach events, it’s important to realize that not everyone is seeking Jesus, not everyone is new, and not everyone is a prospect for coming to your church. This isn’t a reason not to do the event, but we need to be aware. Just as Jesus told in his parable of the Sower and the Seed, not every seed falls on fertile ground. There are three groups of people who attend your VBS (or any other outreach event for that matter) and each one has different needs, but only one will help you grow your church. In this post we'll look at each of these groups and which one needs the most focus. 1. Your Church People When you first announce your VBS or other event, the first group of people to hear about it will be the people who already attend your church. We p...

Photo by Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash Feedback is so important. I can’t tell you how many times I thought something was going to work and it bombed and other times something trivial became a huge success. Through the years, I’ve found collecting feedback increases my odds of creating success. There are a lot of tools out there to facilitate the collection of feedback, but the one I use for most events is surveys. As part of my follow up process, which I write about here , I always send out an email thanking people for coming and inviting them to our next service or event. At the end of the email, I’ll include a link to a survey. Because I’m asking for their time and opinion, I strategically provide the carrot of a gift card drawing between $25 and $50.  One time for budgetary reasons, I skipped the drawing. As a result, the survey responses were very low. By offering some kind of payment the response rate increases dramatically. I’ve used Survey Monkey in the past with great succ...

Easter is the Super Bowl of Christendom. More people come to church on Easter than any other Sunday of the year. I know last year’s Easter was different than any in recent memory, but now with churches opening up again, and others, like mine in Florida have been open for a while, we’re looking to see the people to come back maybe for the first time in over a year. Looking at 2019’s stats, my ministry doubled in size for that one Sunday. But with all these new people how do we get them to come back? How do we connect them to our church? COVID accelerated a lot of things and one thing I believe it really sped up was the need for community. People are longing for human connection more than a fancy service, great music, or a remarkable guest experience. Don’t get me wrong, we still need those things, but we have to connect them to a community. It’s the people that will get them to come back. I am a children’s pastor, so this follow up plan will have elements specific to that ministry...