Church Marketing University

Church Marketing University

I can sum up in one sentence the best way to evangelize and it’s something I learned early on in my ministry career – We gotta love people; that’s it, just show them we care, truly CARE. It may be old school, it may make you laugh or roll your eyes, but it honestly comes down to that truth.

I wanted to reach out to a group of teens in the neighborhood where the church I pastored was located. One day, I was headed down the parsonage driveway and noticed some boys playing basketball at the hoop behind the church. (Our church was on about 5 acres close to an apartment complex and kids would routinely find their way over to the outside basketball court.) I was wearing a suit, but jumped out of the car anyway and started jawing with them and just having fun. I’m terrible at basketball, but I made a deal with them – If I won, they would have to come to church (with girls of course). They agreed and shockingly, every time I threw the ball up, it went in! Definitely a God thing. Long story short, I ended up beating them and they came to church! I coached our church teens on how to welcome the new kids ahead of time to make them feel welcome. The boys not only came, they stayed!

Evangelism is all about practical ways we show our love to those who don’t know Christ, it’s about building relationships so unbelievers are receptive to hearing the truth and will welcome the answer in Christ. Below are my top 10 ideas you can implement in your church to create an evangelistic culture and realize life change in your community.

• This may seem like a ‘no brainer’ but start keeping stats on key figures, like the number of people joining your church by profession of faith, number of baptisms, number of those taking evangelism classes, etc. Then make sure you publicly celebrate those faith steps.
• In some way, include the concept of evangelism in your Mission or Vision statement.
• Include Evangelism as a line item percentage in your Budget Planning each year.

• Make evangelism training classes a regular part of your offerings at church just like membership and other class offerings; and recognize people going through it with a certificate of achievement. Have them share a story of how they put the training to work.
• Train ‘Greeters’ to see themselves as the first impression newcomers have of the whole church experience! Ask newcomers what their first impressions were of the church and share with the greeting team.
• Train Prayer personnel to see themselves as First Responders, if your church has altar calls and/or invites people to come forward for prayer.
• Make it a goal to actually Commission 10% of your members in ‘Lifestyle’ seed sowing and evangelism. Regularly share their stories with the congregation as a whole, spotlighting your in-house missionaries and their mission fields.

• Do a survey to discover the needs of your community, then buy in to meeting those needs in some way during the year in a major coordinated effort.

• During the major “community needs” event, offer something free and do whatever is necessary to obtain name, address, phone and email address of those whose needs you meet. At the least, add their info to your list for follow up. And then make sure you do follow up. Ask to use their story in your church communications.
• Baptisms are Celebrations: when someone is scheduled to be baptized, send invitations to all their family and friends list (no doubt some will not be saved) and include into the baptismal tank the person who was the significant influence for Christ in their lives. Share these stories widely through the church communications channels and offer copies to the individuals involved to share in their circles outside of church.

Skye Alison began his career in ministry at age 25 and has always focused on training others to share the gospel as a lifestyle no matter what role he filled. The ideas he offers here come from 25 years of pastoral ministry in five states. Today he heads up a parachurch organization, iOutreachInc, that strives to eliminate the barriers people have in coming to Christ and believers have inviting them! Its unique approach honors the Spirit of God and His timing, respects the unsaved’s desire for anonymity, highly values relationship, eliminates the bottleneck of conversion beginning at the church, decreases the fear of evangelizing, confronts unbelievers squarely with the Gospel without negative emotional interference or religious distraction, and provides opportunity for further interaction.