Advertising Your Church When $$ Is Tight
Michael Lukaszewski, lead pastor of Oak Leaf Church and initiator of Launch And Lead has been helping church planters for some time. Michael helps churches by sharing information. He puts out in other words. He puts out the knowledge he has gained so that others can learn from him and his team. He has been one of my long distance coaches for a long time.
Recently I asked him via a comment posted on Launch And Lead: “How can a church plant get the word out about their church when 1) advertising dollars are very tight and we can’t do postcard mailings, 2) when the community you live in has sign laws that prevent you from using yard signs.”
I thought others might be interested in Michael’s 7 Steps (below).
1. Make road signs and have people put them in their own yards.
2. Print simple flyers (you can get nice full-color ones online for cheap) and get a group of your people to put them on doors personally. The most expensive part of postcards is the postage.
3. Print up some t-shirts and ask your people to them around town on a certain day or give your people bumper stickers for their cars. Or have them write with shoe polish on their windows.
4. Print business card size invites to a series (less than $50) and teach your people how to use them. Personal invitations are the absolute best way to invite people to church. About 75% of our first time guests come because they are personally invited.
5. Go through your budget and cut some internal stuff and use it on getting people there. My guess is that you could cut somewhere. You may need to sacrifice something you think is necessary to free up some money to get people to church.
6. Hire The Change Group to help you generate more operational revenue.
7. Make sure your church service is amazing. Somehow, people show up at what is good.
QUESTION: How do you get the word out about your church?
