These efforts all lead to the identification and prioritization of goals and objectives that can best serve the community that the christian mysticism. This process can help assess where there are actual needs as well as where congregation feels there are needs within the church, what gaps exist, and potential goals that the congregation and leadership are likely to support and champion. Here-4-You Consulting offers these diagnostic services as a tremendous vehicle to get your church thriving again. Once identified, we can help prioritize identified goals based on feasibility, willingness to serve, and resources available.
Visible Churches:
There are churches that stay visible, that appeal to young adults and young families and use effective strategies to educate the community about the congregation, programs offered, and openness to new members. Though religious groups often shy away from the term, this is often classified as marketing. Marketing activities include Logo Development, Mission & Vision development, print materials, website development, and the use and implementation of social media.
A strong and vibrant logo can help in providing a graphic identity to the church as a whole or to individual programs, projects, services, and campaigns. An effective logo will easily be identified with the church.
It is even more important to have an effective Mission and Vision for the church and for individual projects or campaigns. This can also be translated into a tagline, slogan, or other language that helps give identity to the project and is coordinated with the logo and other materials. Likewise, complementary print materials using the logo, tagline, slogan, and other information further support the identity of the church as a whole as well as its individual programs, projects, services, and campaigns.
Finally, it is important for churches to communicate using the language spoken by the people they wish to attract. A Life Way Research study sponsored by Axletree Media found that, although 78% of churches have a website, the vast majority of these websites are poorly designed, not well maintained, and serve mostly as a static ad for the congregation.
At the same time, nearly 90% of new church members report first visiting a church website before attending. Integrated into the website should be the use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. These strategies are critical to modern churches.
Taking Care of Business:
The church is not a business. However, it still needs to be well organized, have an effective mission and vision, have administrative policies and procedure in place that help the church fulfill its mission, and have a process in place for developing and implementing new programs.
As ministries, churches often are remiss in addressing the administrative and business needs of the organization. It is important to seek to implement policies and procedures to support the administration of church business. This may include Personnel Policies, Facility Use Policies, Job Descriptions, and other policies or procedures addressing the specific needs of the church. Further, in addition to identifying what services to implement, the church must also know how to implement the services. Program Development implements a strategy to assist with program design, implementation, and management.
Effective Stewardship:
We have all heard that Jesus spoke five times as much about money and possessions as he did prayer and faith. Yet many churches still neglect implementing effective stewardship campaigns and strategies. Churches with strong and effective stewardship ministries have an understanding of stewardship that requires the implementation of a response based stewardship program EVERY year and an understanding that stewardship is not a once-a-year process but an ongoing attitude throughout the year.
Stewardship strategies are designed to assist the church in implementing stewardship and giving campaigns. This will usually include an annual stewardship campaign in addition to one-time or project specific campaigns such as a capital campaign, building campaign, or implementing a strategy to increase general giving and tithing.
Most churches are funded almost exclusively through tithes and offerings from the congregation. Oftentimes, regular and special offerings do not meet the needs of the church, much less the community’s needs.
Too many churches are neglecting other funding opportunities. Perhaps a tutoring program is active that could secure grant funds or a food pantry exists that could be supported by a regional food distribution program. A comprehensive and effective stewardship strategy will look at these nonconventional opportunities as a means to increase the impact and effectiveness of the church’s programs, meet the needs within the community and fulfill Christ’s purpose for the church.