When you want to increase growth in your church, the best place to start is to maintain the momentum you already have.
Future growth usually stems from an active church family. When they’re engaged and have no interest in leaving, they’ll also help to bring in new visitors.
The key is ensuring growth doesn’t start to decline. With a little extra work, it’s easier than you might think to keep your members happy and engaged and still boost growth.
Improve Current Member Engagement
Your first step is to improve member engagement. When members don’t feel like a church is making a positive impact on their life, they’re likely to leave. A few ways to boost engagement include:
- Asking about their needs
- Providing inspiration throughout the week
- Creating more opportunities to get involved
- Use motivating sermons
Of course, don’t forget to take extra time to engage young adults and millennials. They’re vital for keeping your church more modern and attracting younger members.
Ask For Member Feedback
Why should new people visit your church? With so many churches around, what makes your church the one potential visitors should choose? Before you can spread the word and boost growth, talk to your existing members. Make them feel like a key part of the church’s growth. Plus, they’ll be able to tell you what makes them love this particular church.
Use their feedback as testimonials on your website or in new visitor pamphlets. You may also learn about potential changes that would help you maintain your current members and increase growth at the same time. More ideas are always a good thing.
Gather Volunteers For Attracting New Members
Create a group to specifically increase growth in your church. This group should be a mix of ages to better appeal to all ages in the community. Task them with welcoming new visitors and getting their contact details. Ask them to come up with potential community projects where the church can interact with non-members.
This volunteer group could also write a weekly blog post geared towards potential visitors. This helps people find your church website and boosts growth. It also gives members a sense of purpose, making them stay.
Get Your Members Involved In The Community
Community involvement is important to church members. Spiritual growth is the top priority, but volunteering in the community helps them practice what they’re learning in church. After all, being part of a community is part of why people become members to begin with.
Remember to give everyone an opportunity, but never try to guilt people into volunteering. Perhaps they can help out during services if they have a busy schedule. Having an active church community makes members want to stay.
Another benefit is your members are interacting with non-members. This lets potential visitors get an idea of what your church is about. It’s a friendly way to help the community and spread the word about your church in a way that doesn’t feel awkward or too preachy.
Spread The Word
Finally, spread the word. It sounds so simple, but if you want to increase growth, you have to spread the word. You can’t always just expect people to find your church. There are so many options to choose from and some people aren’t even sure they want to attend a church, even though their faith is strong.
Some ways to get the word out include:
- Ask members to invite friends, family and co-workers
- Host free special events for the entire community with no obligation to join
- Be active on social media and incorporate current events when you can – ask members to share your posts if they want
- Consistently update your website – add sermons, upload special podcasts, blog at least once a week, link to inspirational stories and videos and keep your events calendar updated
When you combine all of the above, you have a solid strategy to increase growth. Plus, by working to engage your current members, they’ll stay as well. Remember, even if members aren’t coming every single week, having an active online presence helps them stay engaged with your church. This means you’re maintaining your current membership. Plus, they’ll likely share content with others, boosting church growth.
Do you have an active online presence? Try our free website analysis to see if your site is working to maintain and increase growth.
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