WHAT TO DO WHEN SOMEONE IN YOUR COMMUNITY DECIDES TO TAKE YOU DOWN!!

 Yes, you read the title correctly.  Increasingly my clients are running into people in their communities - sometimes in the church, other times in the wider community, in one case in one of the Fresh Expression groups - who are just hostile towards them.  Some (usually slight) thing sets them off, and as often as not, it is nothing the pastor did.  But once they go onto their holy tear, they may not wish to reason and  they may easily turn on anyone (pastor included) who tries to help them take down their anger.

YOUR CHURCH NEEDS AN APP

For the last decade, cutting edge congregations have been adding mobile apps to their ministry communications plans.  These early adopters have tended to be very large and/or to serve a good volume of young adults.

YOUR CHURCH PROBABLY NEEDS A COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR!

 “I never can find out what’s going on around here.”

(Pastor responding), “ We send a newsletter by email every week.  The gall of people to say they don’t have access to information!”

“The website still has stuff on it inviting us to Christmas Eve services. And it’s almost May!  There hasn’t been a Facebook post in a month.”

(From an across the street neighbor) “Is that church still even open?  The posted message on their sign hasn’t changed in months.”

PLAYING THE LONG GAME

 

There is a perennial debate about how a leader, director, supervisor, line manager, coach or pastor should best spend their time: working more with their A players or their B players.

UP YOUR HOSPITALITY GAME!

Last month we talked about several best practices for growing churches in the 2020s. Today we drill down on one of them: building relationships with worship guests.

All over the world, we see amazing worship experiences with helpful preaching and inspirational music. And yet, more often than not, these excellent worship services are not growing!

FORGET THE EXCUSES. YOU CAN GROW A CHURCH IN 2026! Here is how…

1. Get your act together on visitor follow up.  Make a plan for welcoming, name tags, and follow up after each of a person's first four visits. This can double your rate of people retention. In some cases, this alone can tip you into net gains.

THE BIGGEST SHIFT IN MINISTRY STRATEGY WORK IN THIS CENTURY

As a young(er) church consultant around the turn of this century, one of the throw-away lines that I used to hear was that the days of long-range planning were over.  The world was moving too fast, we were told.  All of us had seen the long-range planning reports and posters of imagined facility development hidden away in old file cabinets and church closets - plans that never came to fruition.  It was assumed that future-oriented planning was, therefore, no longer a valid enterprise.  About that time, the congregation which I now belong to was creating future plans based on its recent past, assuming ever new generations of families with young children were its future.  Now, we look at the renderings of the giant, 1000-seat sanctuary envisioned for the street corner and we thank God that that thing never got built.