How to Promote Your Evangelism Training in Your Church

Are you hosting an evangelism training in your church this fall?  Sometimes, announcing the evangelism training event (like this one I offer over the internet) in your church may generate a fear that will keep your members away and your turnout low.

Potential Objections are based on fears

Evangelism, at least in my circles of influence, seems to be a dreaded word.

Some people feel queasy, the hairs stand on the back of their neck, people want to secretly leave the room.

On the opening night of our Listening Evangelism Conferences, one participant in Michigan simply said

“Evangelism scares us.”

There is lots of baggage associated with the word evangelism.

A list that I have gathered over the years include:

• Fear of Rejection
• To mess up and somebody’s eternity destiny is your fault
• Interrupting somebody’s life
• Losing a friendship
• Fear of offending
• Fear of what others will think about you.
• Stuck with unanswerable questions
• Feeling inadequate
• Being seen as arrogant
• Fear of being kicked out of your family or breaking a family relationship
• Fear of your own weakness, hypocrisies, and inadequacies
• Doubt and not being certain about your own beliefs.
• Guilt
• Fear of being a hypocrite.
• Drive-by Evangelism

Use Your Promotion to Answer fear based objections

As you promote your evangelism training event, find a way to answer one of those fear based objections.

For example:

Mental Objection: Will this training conference make me go stand on the street corner and preach?

Your announcement: We’ll show you how evangelism can happen in the ordinary course of life with you having to preach in a park to unwilling listeners.

Mental Objection: I feel awkward talking about my faith in Christ.

Your announcement:   We’ll help you find some simple conversational starters to help you overcome any sense of awkwardness in a faith sharing conversation.

If you are making a bullet point list for a promotional flyer, consider stating what your participating will learn, rather than what you will do as a presenter.

Promotional Channels for your Evangelism Training

You likely know the current promotional channels in your church.  Effective promotion will flow through multiple channels.  That is simply a result of current society we live in.

• Your Church Newsletter
• Your Social Tools like your Church Webpage, Facebook, Twitter
• Posters, Flyers, and Brochures
• Announcements
• Video Announcements
• Vision Casting by the Lead Pastor

Creative Promotion

Create a simple invitation video like the one I’ve made here:

In this brief video, I’ve mentioned the basics of where, when, and why, and little about me.

I shared how evangelism training helped me overcome some of the objections and fears.

Make Registration Easy

Setup a promotional webpage on your church website for your event that includes links that you can use, as well as some downloadable forms.

Use a service like EventBrite (affiliate Link) to manage your registrations.  It’s free if you don’t charge for tickets.  They can create a little widget you can install on your registration page on your church website, or you can use their registration link directly to facilitate online registrations.

Churches have found success posting this registration link:

• Pastor Blogs
• Bulletin insert
• Announcements
• Newsletter
• Pastor weekly emails
• Full page flyer for hallway bulletin boards
• Post a link to registration page on your churchs website.
• To governing bodies in their denomination for newsletters and website.
• Post the conference link to your profiles on mySpace, Facebook, and other social sites.
• Forward email to your networks using the BCC, and add your own personal recommendation

Build Momentum in the weeks ahead.

One idea is to use your announcement channels to build momentum.

I like to use a series of four emails in the four week leading up to the event.

Each email addresses one problem in personal evangelism, and suggests that the conference will answer that question.

Each email then includes a registration link on the church website to help people register for the event.

I have found that evangelism conference organizers have a better turnout when they use a series of promotional emails.

In one event, the turnout was 3 times the number expected and the organizers attributed the turnout to this creative email series promoting their evangelism training (Link)

Multiple exposures generate momentum.

Each email or posting should also include a link to get more information about the event and register online.

Order an Evangelism Training from me

I offer a virtual seminar on personal evangelism training.  You can use this as an evangelism training event for your team.

It is travel free, and you can offer it on any night that you choose.

If you want this workshop in Spanish, I can do that too.

Read more about how to get your own evangelism training seminar from me.