Are you a leader in your church? If so, you’ve probably been concerned about the steady decline in attendance that has occurred over the past few years for many churches. Here are a eight ways to attract people to your church this summer:
1. Continue Online Streaming
Churches that were able stream their services during the lockdown periods did okay. If you find that your in-person attendance is still lower than ever, try to continue your streaming worship options, as they may be more attractive and flexible for your members. To prevent viewer fatigue, change up the format of your online service from time to time, hoping to surprise viewers and urging them to tune in every week for compelling content that will draw them closer to God.
2. Identify Your Community Needs
One of the best ways to keep people coming to church is to identify and address their needs as a community. This may require some time and effort on the part of the leadership team. You may need to go out of your way to be involved in community activities so you know what the families of your members are interested in and concerned about. If you are able to do so, you will be able to share messages of faith and encouragement with them that apply directly to their concerns and needs.
3. Become More Social Media Savvy
If COVID-19 lockdowns taught churches anything, it taught them the need to connect with members over social media. This is a way to speak the language of the younger generations. Most of the younger parents and youth in your church likely spend a good amount of time on social media each day. By actively posting and connecting with members on social media, your church can help them to feel encouraged throughout the week, which will likely help them to make it to church on Sundays.
4. Take Advantage of Outdoor Space
Especially if your members have concerns about meeting indoors, you may want to take advantage of the outdoors and meet outside. However, there are a few things to remember. Weather conditions can affect the comfort of your members, and therefore affect the quality of the meeting and your talk. You may want to keep an eye on the weather forecast and plan for days that will be sunny and warm. If you live in Tucson like I do, high temperature is always a factor.
5. Encourage Relationships
One way to keep your attendance consistent is to nurture a culture of friendship and love within your church. Helping people find ministries that will meet their needs. For example, ministries like women’s, men’s, youth, and children’s can help people connect to people their own age with similar needs. If people have strong relationships and firm connections with each other, they’ll be more encouraged to keep coming to church as they’ll find a support system in their fellow believers.
6. Personalize Invitations
While it is important to address the community’s needs as a whole to keep them coming to church, you may also find that personalizing invitations to individuals and families will also grow your church in a stronger way. Find time to visit different families and groups and extend personalized invitations to them. You may also want to encourage them to be involved in the church and help them discover their fit in ministries within the church.
7. Appreciation Events
Your church surely has many volunteers that help to keep it running. During this unprecedented time of the global pandemic, volunteers may be doing even more of the work. Take the time to appreciate them. Host a driveway pancake breakfast to say thank you. Mail out some thank you gift cards for a cup of coffee. Feature volunteers on your social media to appreciate them. Even though they might not volunteer for recognition, everyone likes to be thanked. A little appreciation will go a long way and keep them engaged and encourage others to get involved.
8. Minister to the Individual
One of the greatest things that we can learn from Jesus is the importance of ministering to individuals personally. Throughout his documented ministry in the Bible, he performed miracles and addressed the doubts of individuals, strengthening their faith through personalized messages and visits. We should be doing the same.
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