Over the next few days I am going to try to summarize the main points and highlight some practical ideas for church revitalization in the next few blogs. After attending NCLI (National Church Leadership Institute) this summer, I thought it would be helpful to list the seven secrets of church re-vitalization. Look out! Sabbatical ends Monday, September 12th.
The NCLI Seven Secrets
1. Understand the current situation and start where you are.
2. Be Positive and map your assets.
3. We must reclaim evangelism.
4. Reclaim our compelling Mission; "Why are we the church?"
5. Create small groups for spiritual formation.
6. Administration is Ministry: empower creative people and programs.
7. Transformational Worship.
#3 Reclaim evangelism.
We need to remember that we have the most valuable message in the world, we offer changed lives through grace, forgiveness, mercy, reconciliation, community, connection, friends and relationships, meaning and purpose, hope and joy. How have we lost this mission in the life of the church? How can we get beyond the stereotypes of what it means be to a "Christian" and how can we differentiate ourselves from the current image that people have in their minds when they hear the word "church"?
Marketing;
1. begins at home. Mobilize the congregation. Your building is your billboard.
2. Being consistent and persistent is vital
3. Tell stories.
4. One size fits some. Move people with visual, auditory and movement.
5. Use all your tools; yellow pages, web, Ephesians 4:12
6. Think multi-level facebook, twitter streams email and touches
7. It's all about the experience.
Some online tools were suggested;
techsoup has twitter for churches.
Insight.com has help with websites on facebook.
When people come to worship have them sign in to facebook and say, "I'm in worship at Trinity". We see signs all over the place that say, Like us on facebook". Why is your church any different than other recommendations that you make to your friends? Mobile internet will replace desktop internet by 2014.
Engage people on Facebook...post questions and bring back the answers that people give during worship. Maybe you can give a prize for the best answer. Social media is a way to engage people in a non-threatening way.
It is important to have accurate databases. Get email addresses and maintain a useable database.
Some suggestions were made for website tools;Churchmarketingsucks.com
faithclipart.com
healyourchurchwebsite.com
churchmarketingonline.com
Use youtube to get the message out.
Understand the core values of the UCC.
Don't worry as much about "members" but strive for active participants. All old school measures are descriptive . Now, "Regular participation" means that they worship one time a month. Frequency of worship attendance has declined for quite a while now.
Therefore a membership of 400 means 100 in worship. Get away from the idea that Sunday morning is all there is. Program through the week. Embrace visuals in worship whenever possible.
When you share information on Facebook and other social network sites, your audience grows exponentially. Imagine if out of 400 friends, only one percent or four of them "share" your message it could reach upwards of 1600 people. Socail networks dranaticly increase your ability to get your message out.
Kimberly is the social media consultant for the Center for Progressive Renewal. Technology is not a fad. It is an important shift in communication. Technology connects people in new ways. There are a number of growing online churches. It is not "whether" we use social media, but "how well" we use it.
Some churches meet only online.She showed us a video about the speed of change.
The rules about the internet are;
a good website still counts.
blogs and content management systems are more important than mailings.
email in bulk to everyone in your database using "Mailchimp" or Constant Contact"
Facebook pages and groups are essential
Grab attention
engage and interact
take action
Kimberly listed 10 suggestions to guide Church use of social media; be authentic, giving, engaging, action oriented, reciprocal, relevant, frequent, daring, flexible, Pastoral.
I'm trying to decide which picture to use on facebook; What's your vote?
Picture A.
OR Picture B?
No comments:
Post a Comment