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15 Strategies to Increase Number of First Time Visitors

Last Updated: March 16, 2017 by EvangelismCoach

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series church transformation

In yesterday’s article 2 Attitudes for Small Church Transformation, Ron Crandall’s study pointed out how evangelistic growth in the small church is rooted in relationships and need strategies to increase the number of first time church visitors.

Small church approaches to evangelism need to be person centered. - Ron Crandall

Larger churches may have lots of programs to help attract them and integrate people quickly.  Smaller churches may not have the programmatic resources.  Their strength has to be relational.

In turnaround churches,

“new faces and families in church enable members to believe again in a brighter future and invest again in their buildings, their witness, and their efforts to please God.”

Small church approaches to #evangelism must be people centered. Click to Tweet

15 Efforts to Increase First Time Visitors in the small church

Ron Crandalls study highlights 15 effective ways to increase the number for first time church visitors in the small church.

Crandall surveyed pastors on their intentional church growth efforts.

He wanted to learn which efforts seemed fruitful to reach new people and increase the retention of first time church visitors.

  1. Emphasis on Invite a Friend
  2. Utilize advertising — phone, letters, ads, signs
  3. Start new programs
  4. Welcome visitors better
  5. Encourage lay visitation
  6. Follow up with visitors
  7. Conduct pastoral visitation
  8. Focus on children’s ministries
  9. Deliver visitor welcome packets and baked goods
  10. Offer pastoral care to the community
  11. Redirect existing programs outward
  12. Clarify the meaning of being a Christian
  13. Pray intentionally for unreached people.
  14. Provide opportunities for new people to serve
  15. Plan for special evangelistic events.

The key result here is that small churches must do well at making relational contact.

What surprised me is how high advertising ran on this list — which isn’t personal at all.

Download this report to help you improve your welcome ministry as they come.

15 Efforts to Increase First Time Visitors in small church #evangelism Click to Tweet

How new people come to church for the first time

Now Crandall’s original study was done in the late 1990s, when church growth scholarship was really studying the impact of such advertising.  From research done some time ago and still in print from Amazon (Source:The Inviting Church, 1987 p. 44), here is what was found:

  • 2% by Advertisement
  • 6% by the Pastoral Invitation
  • 6% by organized evangelism campaign
  • 86% by friends or relatives

I don’t know if there has been any new research to show these numbers to have changed or remain the same.

At least the statistics show that for most growth to happen, personal invitation is still the best.  I was glad to see that is still #1 on the list.

Invite a friend

There are some formal campaigns that you can create to run “Friendship Sundays” or “Friends and Family day” or something like that.  The idea is pick a Sunday and build momentum for invitation, programming and the like.  That’s one approach.

A Twitter follower bought a 10 week packaged campaign off the Internet in 2009 and laughed at it’s 1980s content, down to the poster art and the plastic lapel pins.  At least the tapes were updated to CDs, though the manual still referred to tapes.

But it doesn’t take a lot of resources to run such a campaign.

Read these 6 steps to host an invite a friend campaign

Successful evangelism in small churches

But Crandall’s research revealed that

Successful results in outreach, evangelism, and church growth in smaller churches depends on

  1. Having a pastor who leads in evangelism
  2. Training, planning, and goal setting for growth
  3. Inviting friends and family to church
  4. Designing programs to reach new people
  5. Visiting all prospects
  6. Enhancing the church’s image through promotion and advertising
  7. Holding special evangelistic events
  8. Clarifying the meaning of being Christian
  9. Praying for God to touch lives
  10. Using the gifts of the body for the work of the kingdom.

This list highlights for me the role of a pastor in church growth.  Yet the challenge that I keep encountering is that many pastors have no formal seminary training (confirmed by Martha Reece’s research and Ron’s Research), nor do many pastors (at least mainline anyway) have a lot of personal experience in personal evangelism.

They may be able to set the goals for growth and hope other people help make it, but pastors need to lead in evangelism.

Once your church visitors come, are you ready to impress them?

You might like to read . . .

  • Book Review: A Plan to Revitalize a Church's Passion for Evangelism
  • 3 Focus Areas to Grow a Small Church
  • Grow Your Church 20 Percent - By The Numbers
  • Operation Andrew / Bring a Friend Sunday
  • How to Get a First Time Church Visitor
  • Business Cards that Church members can give away.
  • Closing the Back Door
Series Navigation2 Attitudes for Small Church Transformation
Related posts:
I want you to come to my church
Are Unbelievers Present in the Assemblies in Acts? Part 3
First Impressions: Survey First Time Visitors (More)
Reduce Friction on Your Church Website
How @BrandonACox is Planting a Church Using Social Media
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Originally Posted: February 26, 2009 Category: Grow Your Church, Personal invitationsTag: church invitation, church visitors, Grow Your Church, Pastors, small church, TransformationSeries: church transformation
Previous Post:2 Attitudes for Small Church Transformation
Next Post:Webinar Resources — Church Transformation with Ron CrandallTurnaround and Beyond

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Pastor John Akinyemi

    May 31, 2014 at 6:42 pm

    we have a very small church and we are believing God for an increase

  2. EvangelismCoach

    June 7, 2014 at 6:03 am

    May the Lord open the doors for your church members to invite their friends and share their faith. Keep praying for more workers for the harvest.

  3. Feyisayo Abiodun

    January 20, 2015 at 8:55 am

    Ours is a small Church which needs increase in membership quite urgently. I have learnt one or two things from reading this post. Thanks and God bless you.

  4. Pastor Nyabiya S. Awusy

    March 4, 2015 at 5:51 am

    Thanks Pastors Chris for your write up on 15 strategies to I crease first time visitors I really appreciated your points. The church was scattered by the terrorists (boko haram) Christ will rebuild His Church. Thanks.

  5. EvangelismCoach

    March 4, 2015 at 8:57 pm

    Pastor Nyabiya,

    Thanks for taking the time to drop by and leave a comment. I can only imagine the challenges of reaching out to people in your region. I do pray that churches in your region will continue to reach out with the Love of Jesus.

    Chris.

  6. Jhanleo H. Vitto

    October 6, 2015 at 4:45 am

    Blessed Day Pastor .im a Student Pastor Studying in All for Christ Theological Seminary Here in Oriental mindoro Phillipines.

    Thanks a Lot in These Phases .For Strategies on How Church Encrease ..I will Do This..

  7. Kingsley

    February 7, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    Thanks for points raised on this subject. Our church is small and we have employed a good number of the strategies outlined here but still can barely see the result. Could it be that our mode of implementing the the strategies are inadequate?

  8. EvangelismCoach

    February 9, 2016 at 8:57 am

    Kingsley,

    The ideas here are pretty good. But two more questions come to mind as places to look:

    1). What keeps your members from inviting people? If your members are not giving invitations, there may be some avenues to examine. Members are the first filter of who they will invite.

    2). Is there ongoing prayer for invited guests? I write a little more about that here: https://www.evangelismcoach.org/2016/invite-your-friends-to-church-10-ways-to-pray-for-those-invitations/

  9. Pastor Meshach Nwazue

    February 15, 2016 at 4:17 pm

    Bless you Pastor, Our church is quite small in number and we’re determined to see it grow. Truly, your suggestions are the hidden answers we desperately need to make a difference. Thank you so much.

  10. BSP PAUL K.WAMBUA.

    May 22, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    God bls you..
    Our Church is small and i have a Vision for a mega Church..

  11. akinjide

    May 28, 2016 at 5:29 am

    Thanks sir. i am blessed by this post. it will go a long way for me.

  12. MARK

    August 3, 2016 at 1:01 pm

    Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the son of the Most High God,

    I am the leader of evangelism and soul winning of my Church I really need some tips on Effective Soul Winning Thank You and God Bless You.

  13. EvangelismCoach

    August 9, 2016 at 7:07 am

    @Mark:

    Effective soul winning starts with prayer. Then watch for the nudge of the Holy Spirit to prompt you for where God the Father is drawing people to Himself. As you step out in obedience to that nudge, watch for evidence of spiritual thirst. Then discern where you are in their story – are you watering a seed, planting a seed, or harvesting a seed. Help them take the next step forward in their journey by suggesting a next step like a bible study, prayer, church invite or more.

    Since there are no formulas for soul winning, I can’t give a receipie to follow. But I can share that general process I’ve seen work in my life.

  14. Evangelist Sunday T. Abolainde

    October 12, 2016 at 10:22 am

    thanks for you efforts, as an soul winning evangelist, you have done a good work on details on how to win soul, may God bless you, thanks Eva
    gelist Sunday

  15. EvangelismCoach

    October 19, 2016 at 1:55 pm

    Sunday, Thank you for visiting the EvangelismCoach website and encouraging me today!

  16. William Dawson

    March 27, 2017 at 3:29 am

    Thank you for your encourging advice ,i pray that our pastor is open to this new approach some times change is hard, especiallyi convincing others to try ,but wih Christ all things are possible.,please everybody pray for us here at 2nd Baptist

Trackbacks

  1. How Pastors Lead Congregational Evangelism #4 says:
    February 23, 2010 at 5:13 am

    […] 15 Strategies to Increase Number of First Time Visitors […]

  2. How to Get First Time Church Visitors says:
    May 13, 2010 at 7:38 pm

    […] my notes about how visitors come to church, I have these stats from 1987. It is still in print from Amazon (Source:The Inviting Church, 1987 […]

  3. Improve your Church Hospitality webinar says:
    November 30, 2010 at 9:49 am

    […] 15 Strategies to Increase Number of First Time Visitors […]

  4. Personal Invitations to Church are Most Effective says:
    August 22, 2012 at 8:09 am

    […] my notes about how visitors come to church, I have these stats from 1987. The book is still in print from Amazon (Source:The Inviting Church, […]

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