Hi All,
Finishing up some thoughts on how to shape your image in the community, this week, How long will it take? That is, how long will it take for you as a church to become known for what you want to be known about (assuming you know what that image is)?
This is influenced by the following factors: the age of your church, the growth/transience of your community, the size of the large, community-shaping events you choose, the amount of press coverage, or word-of-mouth buzz you get, and people's memories.
If you are a church plant, you have an (almost) clean slate to work with; if you have been around for awhile, you have your previous image to overcome or change. Both of these can be shaped rather quickly with a large, community-image shaping event, if you can get good coverage or buzz because of it. In some communities all this will take is a couple of good newspaper stories; in larger communities it will take some TV time. Our church plant was in a smallish Chicago suburb, meeting in a 30-screen movie theater complex. It took just a couple of newspaper articles about interesting series we were doing, to get the positive buzz we needed to bring in new people.
If you are in a town with a good annual parade, be sure to take advantage of it, to present the image you want seen about your church. Want to emphasize your family ministry? Get a float and fill it with kids in bright clothes singing happy fun songs. We did a couple of parades in our town with some memorable floats for two years in a row. One year we made a giant golden pyramid, and put up a banner that said, "Let my children go, to __________ Church!" The kids were dressed up like Egyptians and singing fun songs like "King Tut". We made the front page of a large suburban newspaper!
If you have been around for a while, this will take longer. You will have to work harder to remake your image. This make take some large, newsworthy event to help reshape your image. For example, when we were doing a series called "Big Questions from the Big Screen", we did a theme service on the Wizard of Oz, and brought in one of the original munchkins from the show. This was newsworthy and got us some press coverage, and a number of new visitors.
The growth/transience of your community is also a factor. If you are a new church, and the community has slow growth, this works in your favor. Because you are new in a community without a lot of change, you will be the current local buzz for a while when you start. If you are in a community with a high growth or transience rate, then you will be on more of a level playing field with everybody else, trying to get the community's attention.
Finally, concerning people's memories, if you are in the unfortunate situation of being in a church that has had a traumatic past; either a church split, or God forbid, the death of a child or teenager in your ministry, you have a situation that will work against you for years and years. You will constantly have to be demonstrating how you are not that church of the past anymore. This will set back your efforts and make it more difficult to determine the image you want to present. But it can be done by establishing some annual traditions that set your church up as family-friendly. Every Memorial Day in one church, after 9/11, we invited in all the police & fire departments to our church. We invited in the boy scouts to carry the flag and the local VFW bugle group to play "Taps". We made Memorial Day a can't-miss event for our church full of pageantry, patriotism and meaningful reminders of sacrifices for our country, combined with the Great Sacrifice of Jesus. It not only shaped our image in the community, but helped our congregation to own some important values.
But the area in which you have the greatest control is the Series topics which you choose to focus upon. Make some promo cards for every series you do; print and mail them to thousands of people in your community, or hand out small business-sized cards that your people can hand out to their friends. Run some newspaper ads along with it. If you do these consistently for a year, for about four times throughout the year, with some well-chosen topics, you will begin to reshape the focus and image of your church in your community.
I share all this simply because we want to glorify God and make Jesus look good. Do what you can to lift up the name of Jesus and exalt Him and what He can do for your community. Let the children come to Him; help marriages to be rebuilt by Him; let lives be filled with joy because of Him. Lift Him up. He is the best focus and image you can have as a church! Lift up Jesus!
For Jesus and the Kingdom,
Dr. Bill
Finishing up some thoughts on how to shape your image in the community, this week, How long will it take? That is, how long will it take for you as a church to become known for what you want to be known about (assuming you know what that image is)?
This is influenced by the following factors: the age of your church, the growth/transience of your community, the size of the large, community-shaping events you choose, the amount of press coverage, or word-of-mouth buzz you get, and people's memories.
If you are a church plant, you have an (almost) clean slate to work with; if you have been around for awhile, you have your previous image to overcome or change. Both of these can be shaped rather quickly with a large, community-image shaping event, if you can get good coverage or buzz because of it. In some communities all this will take is a couple of good newspaper stories; in larger communities it will take some TV time. Our church plant was in a smallish Chicago suburb, meeting in a 30-screen movie theater complex. It took just a couple of newspaper articles about interesting series we were doing, to get the positive buzz we needed to bring in new people.
If you are in a town with a good annual parade, be sure to take advantage of it, to present the image you want seen about your church. Want to emphasize your family ministry? Get a float and fill it with kids in bright clothes singing happy fun songs. We did a couple of parades in our town with some memorable floats for two years in a row. One year we made a giant golden pyramid, and put up a banner that said, "Let my children go, to __________ Church!" The kids were dressed up like Egyptians and singing fun songs like "King Tut". We made the front page of a large suburban newspaper!
If you have been around for a while, this will take longer. You will have to work harder to remake your image. This make take some large, newsworthy event to help reshape your image. For example, when we were doing a series called "Big Questions from the Big Screen", we did a theme service on the Wizard of Oz, and brought in one of the original munchkins from the show. This was newsworthy and got us some press coverage, and a number of new visitors.
The growth/transience of your community is also a factor. If you are a new church, and the community has slow growth, this works in your favor. Because you are new in a community without a lot of change, you will be the current local buzz for a while when you start. If you are in a community with a high growth or transience rate, then you will be on more of a level playing field with everybody else, trying to get the community's attention.
Finally, concerning people's memories, if you are in the unfortunate situation of being in a church that has had a traumatic past; either a church split, or God forbid, the death of a child or teenager in your ministry, you have a situation that will work against you for years and years. You will constantly have to be demonstrating how you are not that church of the past anymore. This will set back your efforts and make it more difficult to determine the image you want to present. But it can be done by establishing some annual traditions that set your church up as family-friendly. Every Memorial Day in one church, after 9/11, we invited in all the police & fire departments to our church. We invited in the boy scouts to carry the flag and the local VFW bugle group to play "Taps". We made Memorial Day a can't-miss event for our church full of pageantry, patriotism and meaningful reminders of sacrifices for our country, combined with the Great Sacrifice of Jesus. It not only shaped our image in the community, but helped our congregation to own some important values.
But the area in which you have the greatest control is the Series topics which you choose to focus upon. Make some promo cards for every series you do; print and mail them to thousands of people in your community, or hand out small business-sized cards that your people can hand out to their friends. Run some newspaper ads along with it. If you do these consistently for a year, for about four times throughout the year, with some well-chosen topics, you will begin to reshape the focus and image of your church in your community.
I share all this simply because we want to glorify God and make Jesus look good. Do what you can to lift up the name of Jesus and exalt Him and what He can do for your community. Let the children come to Him; help marriages to be rebuilt by Him; let lives be filled with joy because of Him. Lift Him up. He is the best focus and image you can have as a church! Lift up Jesus!
For Jesus and the Kingdom,
Dr. Bill
