What’s the Best Way to Connect the Largest Number of People?

Take a moment and imagine your congregation. Before you get too settled in, think about who comes to your church in the broadest sense.

There are the folks you know by name. They're there almost every time the doors are open. Three or four times a month.

Now add in the folks that you know but not real well. You might not know their names but you know they've got a teenager that they drop off on Tuesday night when you're dropping off yours.

Then there are the folks that you think you've seen at church, but you have no idea who they are.

And finally, add in the people that you'll swear you've never seen before but they seem to recognize you...especially if you're the senior pastor.

I don't know what your percentages are, but in many cases only 10 to 20% of attendees attend 3 out of 4 weekends. The number who come twice a month might be 40 to 50% and the number that come once a month or fewer might be as high 40 to 50% as well.

Think about that math. Admittedly, your math may be very different. But...I want you to think about the fact that when you're trying to move from 25% of your average adult worship attendance in groups to 50% or 80% or 130%...it will almost never happen incrementally. Instead, it will almost always take some pretty big moves to become a church OF groups.

How will you do it? I want to suggest that no other small group launching strategy even comes close to the exponential connecting impact of a church-wide campaign. Whether you are in the catch a moving train scenario or you've been adding a few groups here and there over a number of years, the very best way to connect the largest number of unconnected people is with a well-timed, well-designed, church-wide campaign.

I've written about it extensively. You'll find plenty of information about how to do it in my Top 10 Articles on Church-Wide Campaigns (or, just take a look at the articles in the church-wide campaign category). If you're a figure it out on your own kind of person, you might want to just start there.

On the other hand...if you'd like to talk about how I can help your church launch a church-wide campaign and exponentially change the number of people connected at your church, I'd love to do that. You can find out about my coaching and consulting offerings right here. Or, if you'd rather start the conversation with an email, you can email me right here.