Here’s how to make 2021 your best growth year ever: Place a greater emphasis on attracting new visitors to your church services and events. 100% of your new converts come from your guests. So if you can increase your door traffic, you will increase your growth.
How can you increase your visitor flow? (1) Start a Constant Contact Consciousness (CCC) ministry (see chapter eight, Total Church Growth). (2) Plan a number of special services of various kinds throughout the year. Give your saints plenty of reasons to invite family, friends, and co-workers to church. Plan these events well, promote them aggressively, inform and invite all past guests, pray much, and of course, follow-up faithfully. (3) Do Saturday Door Knocking. Use this once per month event to promote special events, boost bus/van ministry, get home Bible studies via the Quest Survey, find riders for your car ministry, and more. Don’t just invite people to church. Offer them something – free tickets to an Easter drama, teach your children God’s Word, a free Bible survey course, and so on. Instead of pushing your church, offer a free community service. (4)
Experiment with various types of cost-effective advertising. Over time you will find what works well in your area. (5) Put a greater emphasis on visitor follow-up visits. Research has shown that a church with an effective follow-up system will see many more conversions – about 300% more. Getting your visitors back is just as important as getting them there in the first place. 95% of your guests will attend five or more times before being baptized. Rest assured, visitor follow-up is the most successful way to get them back. Your visitors ARE your future members. If your visitors don’t receive the Holy Ghost, practically no one will. Your growth depends upon this ministry.
Some complain that they have few willing to do follow-up visitation. But you only need one or two couples committed to make weekly follow-up visits. This might include you, your church ministerial staff, and other carefully selected volunteers. Each week these couples should be given 2-3 follow-up packets to visit before the next Sunday’s service. With GPS they can be visited very quickly, even on the way home from work, on the way to church, or on lunch hour. This ministry does not need a dozen workers. Two or three faithful, well-trained couples will easily get you started. Make visitor follow-up your highest priority for the new year. Details on developing an effective follow-up ministry is explained in chapter eight of Total Church Growth.
