The document discusses how churches can attract more visitors by focusing on building relationships. It emphasizes that relationships are key, both in developing a personal relationship with God and connecting with others through small groups. While evangelism used to happen primarily through face-to-face interactions, many now build relationships online through social media. The document recommends that churches identify their strongest "relationship builder" like music or a pastor's sermons, then promote this on social media groups and platforms by engaging people who share related interests and driving them to the church website.

1. Increase Visitors > Target a Crowd > Build Relationships
Attracting more visitors to your church
RELATIONSHIPS!
Relationships are key: A relationship with Christ is what we need to strive for daily. The
Bible is a relationship story about a God that loves us and wants a personal relationship
with us. As Christians we all want that relationship.
Small groups is another church “relationship” builder that helps people grow in their
faith and experience genuine relationships with other believers.
The gospel is meant to be shared through relationships. Otherwise, evangelism would be
as simple as posting scripture on billboards across the world. The greatest tool to reach
non-believers is through genuine, authentic, relationships.
Is your church, like a lot of other churches, struggling with inviting guests? Between the
workplace and children’s activities, families are busier, and it seems harder to get
people’s attention. Yet without guests, your church will not grow. In fact, it will decline!
You need to at least be gaining enough new members to replace people that leave,
move, or pass on. (For a free spreadsheet that will help you examine your numbers click
here www.acrstrategies.com/church and go to Free Resources.)
So, knowing that relationships is the key, how do you grow? - Every church has
something they do extremely well. For some it’s Bible classes, for others it may be music,
youth group, sports, small groups, sermons, etc. What part of your church is your
“Relationships” builder? The area that people seem to talk about and join.
Once you find your “Relationships Builder” then what? - Ok, you have found at least
one area, maybe more than one that is your key relationship area(s). Now it is time to
find people in your community that will respond to this area and develop relationships
with them.
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2. Increase Visitors > Target a Crowd > Build Relationships
Attracting more visitors to your church
RELATIONSHIPS!
Community - Of course the best way to develop relationships with your community is
through your members. But, how do you reach people who are not currently connected
to your members and build relationships with them?
It used to be that we knew our neighbors and as a community we had more face to face
conversations with people in our community. Today a lot of that takes place in the non
face to face environment called Social Media. People still want to connect and have
conversations they just do a lot of it on-line. Facebook, LinkedIn and others allow people
to create groups and invite others that have like interests. If you have an interest in
something there are hundreds of groups that you can join.
Matching your “Relationship Builder” to Community Interest – Do people in your
community even know about your relationship builders? If you think about it, how would
they know unless someone tells them!
Social Media – Facebook, LinkedIn, others are the “Key” - Let’s examine how this
would take place. - Ok, you have determined your best “relationship builder” is your
Praise Band that plays Contemporary Christian music. Let’s find a Social Media audience
and connect.
Step 1. – examine Facebook and LinkedIn for groups that have an interest in Christian
music. Join the groups, join conversations, contribute value, develop relationships. (No
Cost!)
Step 2. – Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to place your post (or ads) in front of a target
audience that you define! Within Facebook, you can define your target audience as
people who like Christian Music or, even more narrowly, people who like or have an
interest in Contemporary Christian Music! (Cost can be as low as $5 a day. You determine
how much you want to spend and for how long.)
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3. Increase Visitors > Target a Crowd > Build Relationships
Attracting more visitors to your church
RELATIONSHIPS!
Step 3. – Post interesting stuff about your Praise Band Post a video so people can hear
and see how good they are, include a click to your church website to hear more songs
from the band. (Note: both Facebook and LinkedIn offer what is called Pay Per Click
advertising. This means you only pay for your advertising if someone clicks and goes to
your website!)
Our best “Relationship Builder” is our Pastor’s sermons! – Ok, let’s say Pastor is doing a
sermon series on Nehemiah and Leadership. You could go into both Facebook and
LinkedIn and develop a target audience of people who have the title of Manager,
Director, C-Suite, etc. Then post information, ask questions, “ what would you do” type
of posts and have the person click to your website for the answer. Of course right on
your website is information about Pastor’s Leadership sermons and an invite for this
Sunday.
When the leadership sermon series is over you can still target “leaders” and have them
click to the past sermon series on your website.
The KEY is Defining your “AUDIENCE” and putting “CONTENT” in front of them that
they value. Here are some examples.
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4. Increase Visitors > Target a Crowd > Build Relationships
How can we help?
ACR Strategies
DonKoehler@acrstrategies.com
352.363.9682
Attracting more visitors to your church
RELATIONSHIPS!
The “Key” to more visitors is “Relationships.” This is not a new concept but in today’s
on-line society the answer may lie in growing relationships in a different manner.
We at ACR Strategies hope you found this valuable. If you have any questions, please
contact us and we would be more than happy to assist you.
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