11 Excellent Church Growth Strategies to Grow Your Church Quickly.
Across the country, church leaders are wrestling with how to keep their congregations going with fewer people showing up.
The number of churchgoers has steadily dropped in the U.S. over the past few decades. But Covid-19 and its lockdown restrictions accelerated that fall.
In-person church attentance is roughly 30% to 50% lower than it was before the pandemic, estimates Barna Group, a research firm that studies faith in the U.S.
Now, churches are looking for different approaches to connect with existing members and attract new ones.
According to Hannah Yoon of "The Wall Street Journal," many religious leaders are laying plans for a more hybrid future with permanent online services. A shift from the in-person gathering that has been at the core of worship for centuries.
Beyond technology, some churches are focused on boosting engagement with small gatherings of congregants for discussion groups or community service and putting more emphasis on a one-on-one relationship with God.
"42% of pastors seriously considered quitting ministry in the last year—that’s two out of every five pastors!"
Today’s technology allows pastors to be more productive and reach more people than ever before—sharing content online, live streaming, group messaging, coordinating small groups and volunteers, as well as managing events.
Most pastors want to focus on church ministry, not church tech. The biggest challenge to effectively using digital tools is learning how to use multiple platforms. Ideally, churches should use a connected, all-in-one solution built for pastors to better know, grow, and disciple their communities. So we've taken some of your guess work out by presenting 11 Excellent Church Growth Strategies to Grow Your Church Quickly.
1. Develop a mission statement prioritizing growth
A church’s mission statement is the reason for its existence. Some may say your church does not need a mission statement, since the obvious goal is to spread God’s word. Excellent missions are more than just vague statements. They give a purpose to the organization and lay down the road to reach their goal. By creating a mission statement that outlines a path to spread God’s word, your church will have an easier time reaching its goals.
After you construct and agree on a mission statement for your church, you must ensure that all church programs and activities help fulfill the mission. If you currently have programs that do not contribute to the mission, do not feel guilty for canceling them and finding new ways to reach similar groups of people.
2. Build Your Youths
A church that does not focus on its children and youth is destined to fail. Younger church members are essential to building your church. Activities that speak to children on their terms and communicate with them in ways that they find comfortable will help encourage membership. The ways you can reach your current younger members and their friends will be different for every church. How has your church tried to get the younger generation in the past? Did they work, or was there not as much of an impact? As you look to your past child and youth activities, we have a few suggestions:
Keep college students coming to virtual church
The pandemic is not the only thing stopping people from attending church services. There are home-bound individuals who have not been able to keep up with their church family because they cannot get to Sunday services. Another group the church is losing is college students. These are young adults who may have been very involved in church programs and activities, but once they went to college, those relationships fizzled, and they found other, less wholesome, groups. Offering virtual Sunday services and small online groups for college students can help continue these relationships and students’ passion for the church.
Encourage children and youth to volunteer with local nonprofits
Talk is cheap. People who live lives of generosity and work for others show what it means to be a Christian every day. By encouraging the youth in your church to find places to volunteer and share their skills and passion, you create a walking promotion for your church.
Invite teenagers to take part in the ministry
If your sermon only speaks to adults, how do you expect to keep children and youth excited and involved? Sure, there is a children’s church, but once you hit a certain age, that option loses its appeal. Ask your youth pastor and team to come up with ways teens can take a larger part in your sermons. Watching younger individuals speak about Christ will not only encourage young people to stay but excite the older church members who may fear what will happen to future generations.
Offer public WiFi during sermons and encourage children to sign up for a Bible app
Children have a hard time sitting still in church. Many parents have done their best by helping kids take notes or getting them to play quietly, but as a pastor, you can help parents keep their children quiet and reach younger people with new ways to learn about God. Several Bible apps include games and note-taking tools that can be part of your sermon. These hands-on devices can open the world of the bible to younger members of your church. If your church offers public WiFi and includes how to use these tools during your sermons, many in your congregation may take advantage of this new way to learn, and yes we can develop that app at Standard American Web™.
Go one step farther by getting your congregation & youth off "EvilBook"
We think it goes without saying that all pastors & priests understand that Facebook and most social medias can be tools of the devil, for lack of a better word. The less time your youth and congregation spends on social medias the better the chances they will continue serving the Lord. So allow us to create your organization its own "ChurchBook." It will move and fell just like Facebook but without all the harmful ads and non-believers influence. Your youth can invite their friends from school where they can then have a better chance of showing their school friends the way to righteousness; a sort of "Our Doors Are Now Opened" for this normally unreachable audience.
3. Encourage involvement
Reach out to your zealous supporters and volunteers to fundraise for your church, and spread the word to their own networks. This will help you acquire new supporters and raise more funds.
Peer-to-peer campaigns are ideal for this. Invite your best supporters and volunteers with a strong network and many followers to create their own fundraising campaigns and raise money for your mission. Encourage them to be an integral part of it and reward their good efforts.
Creating a peer-to-peer campaign can be very easy, all it takes is toggling a switch on your new website developed by us. You can invite as many supporters as you want. Your invitees will receive email invites, and the tool will guide them to create and customize their own campaign pages. Your original campaign page will also have a button added to it, “I want to fundraise for this” which will help visitors and other supporters voluntarily opt to fundraise for your church. Once your fundraisers start raising funds and spreading the word, your parent campaign will list down the top fundraisers (shown below) to encourage more people to fundraise for you.
4. Focus on creating relationships within your community
Youth teams are not the only ones who can learn and benefit from volunteering with nonprofits. Your church can increase involvement in your church by asking members to volunteer for local nonprofits. Offer ways to help the homeless; drop off meals to the elderly; give childcare options to parents who cannot afford it. Involvement in these activities will help your church members share what being Christian really means. This will also introduce others in the community to a caring environment they want to join.
Another way to promote a caring environment and invite new members is by allowing already formed groups to use your facilities. Sundays and Wednesdays are generally popular days for your church activities, but that leaves five more days when other groups can meet. Alcoholics Anonymous, parent support groups, and PADS or other homeless networks are always looking for affordable facilities to use. Don’t think of them as just renters. Instead, build relationships with them and welcome them to join your services. Introduce them to your congregation and watch new friendships and communities develop.
5. Manage your supporters and strengthen these relationships
Now that you’ve built new relationships with supporters and maybe gained some new members, too, it is time that you have a plan to manage them well. You should start by segmenting your supporters into different groups as per their giving abilities, location, giving frequency, event or campaign interest, etc. This will help you understand your supporters, create targeted communication and marketing pieces, and strengthen your relationships with them.
Finally, get started with moves management. It defines the goals and various stages of a donor relationship. These steps will help your fundraisers or staff members better maintain relationships within the community and ask for donations when the time is just right.
Choose a donor management system that is easy for you to use and mostly automated. For example, we add your donor information automatically to its donor management system as soon as donations are made. Your donors will receive login details to access their own donor accounts and manage donation plans. You can check the details, contact them, add notes, and apply filters to segment donors (shown below).
6. Partner with neighboring churches for events and programs
Do you think of other churches as competition or fellow Christians? Unfortunately, the second choice is often ignored. Churches see themselves competing for the few members of their community who want to join God’s family. Why not be different this year? Are there ways other churches are reaching out to the community? Do they offer different options for bible or education classes or seminars? Can you find ways to join them in these efforts?
By joining forces to hold public events or being part of another church’s work in the community, you are building a supportive environment for all Christians and churches. There may even be a few people who attend an event at one church, but feel a stronger connection to your church members they met there. Connect with other local church leaders and suggest ways the two of you can join forces. After all, you all have the same goal, to spread God’s word.
7. Start a virtual church
Ever since the pandemic, churches have started to find new ways to reach their current population. There have been some surprising benefits to these online sermons that may have surprised some church leaders. Virtual churches are growing and allow people who have never attended church, are home-bound or have a new job or school that keeps them from attending church services.
Stream your services online, but here's the catch; do it from the safety of your church web. Facebook and other social medias are just that; social medias. Just like MySpace and past social media platforms that are no longer around; they can be cancelled at any given moment. Not to mention that there's all the distractions of friends chats and posts filling your congregation's feeds. You can eliminate all of that by streaming live from your website. It enables you to offer online prayer groups, bible studies, or other activities online. People who listen to services online take time to learn more about a church. They may also join small groups and support the church financially. That is to say, do not ignore this new trend.
Free and paid services are available to help churches stream services and reach a larger audience. Church Streaming TV is one of the apps out there that streams services from churches worldwide. Some of these churches are mega-churches, but others are small churches looking to increase their outreach.
Another way a virtual church is particularly helpful is for raising funds online. Your website should make it the utmost clear for visitors to make a donation online. People these days keep their mobiles handy at all times. So when they visit your church, let them know about your online presence. Along with other benefits you provide online, mention the option to give. You never know who might end up giving to your church online and even opt for recurring donations.
8. Use social media to promote your church
While the virtual church is a newer trend, social media has been around for longer and has shown no signs of losing its popularity. There are a few ways churches can use social media to promote their mission and reach a larger audience. Churches can share public events on Facebook and encourage church members to take a picture at the event and share online with their friends and families. Ask Sunday morning attendees to share a bible verse or quote from the sermon on Twitter. Encourage them to speak about what the verse means to them.
There are untold numbers of ways social media can help grow your church. Learn more about how to develop a social media plan and keep your mission in mind when creating ways your church and members can share information, invite new members, and raise more funds.
9. Hold community events for the public
You may have seen a fair or food event held at another local church in your community. Events like these are ways to bring in new people and share their church’s mission with the public. These are generally affordable and family-friendly events. Parents and children in the community look forward to these events every year, and in addition to introducing people to your church, you are also raising money to keep your church thriving.
Some churches have gotten creative in reaching out to the community and encouraging people to check out what they have to offer. Hope Church started a project where speakers come to the church to discuss issues of justice and racism. These are hot topics in the news and online, and Hope Church has found a way to participate in the conversation. Local education professionals are invited to speak and bring their own followers to the church.
Pro tip: Give your congregation the best experience of attending an event for your church. Create an online event ticketing form with Standard American Web™. This will also help you create unlimited ticket levels as per your pricing strategy, keep track of sold tickets, know the attendees’ preferences, and maintain purchasers’ information. Standard American Web™ also lets you accept donations from the event ticketing form.
10. Let church members help online
As fewer people keep cash and checks on hand, weekly offering plates are not collecting the money they used to. This lack of funds can make growing and promoting your church difficult. Churches that have their own website can receive tithes and offerings online. It gives people more options to give regularly through recurring donations and encourages larger gifts with credit and debit card payments.
Other options churches can use are text-to-give and crowdfunding.
Churches can include a texting number and campaign ID in the program, and pastors can ask people to give with their phones right there and then. Since more people have smartphones, they can easily text the campaign ID to the number and receive a link to an online donation form. Donors can repeat the donation anytime on the go with just a simple text – no need for opening the donation form again. Here’s what repeating a donation with Standard American Web™ Text-to-Give looks like:
Crowdfunding campaigns can be created by the church for mission trips, building improvements, or other activities. They can be communicated with church members and promoted by the organization and parishioners. These campaigns give members another chance to share excitement for God and their church with friends and family.
Also, include digital wallets in your online giving if your church wants to attract and retain younger individuals. Standard American Web™ pay software ensures a superfast donation process for your supporters. They can use digital wallets like Venmo, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Mercado Pago, etc. Moreover, there will be no need to input personal information. This will substantially reduce your donor drop-off rates.
11. Focus on small groups
Sunday services are what people think of when they hear ‘church’. But membership in God’s family does not require a large building and hundreds of followers. New Christians, after Jesus’s death and rebirth, visited together in their homes. They shared their own memories and stories of how Jesus’s teachings impacted their lives.
Simple Church Europe has used these church groups as an inspiration to spread Christianity around Europe and build up the faith again. The goal of this organization is to re-evangelize Europe during an age when fewer people attend church. All churches can grow their congregation and inspire new members through smaller groups. For instance, prayer meetings, parent support, and children and youth classes give individuals a place to share their enthusiasm for God and build strong relationships with fellow believers.
Final Thoughts
Churches are always looking for ways to reach more people and strengthen their membership. They can feel desperate to raise more funds to increase their membership, but they must not lose sight of their mission and goals when coming up with ideas. And that's to protect the congregation that you are attempting to grown now. You can't really do that with the desperate measures that most churches were forced to utilize during the epidemic. Social media just isn't the place you want your followers to have to go to attend your service. Besides being an additional distraction; it is also contrary to the object of your mission. It's time. It's been time to move your congregation off social media and to the safe environment of your website.
If you need an affordable and simple-to-use online fundraising tool, learn more about our features like recurring donations, crowdfunding, memberships, event ticketing, donor management, text-to-give, etc. here. Churches are always looking for ways to reach more people and strengthen their membership. Standard American Web™ Premium is here to help.
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