# "Promoting" your church service



## Richard King (Aug 10, 2005)

What are some things your church does to let others know you exist? Without hokey jokes on signs or marketing plans or big $$$ ad campaigns. The church I go to is being planted by the PCA but isn't visible to much of the community yet. What is appropriate and effective in terms of becoming more visible. (We are in a town with a church or something calling itself a church on every corner but I find this place refreshingly simple and biblical)


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## sastark (Aug 10, 2005)

A few ideas:


 Make sure you have an ad in the local Yellow Pages. This is usually the first place people look for a church.
 Make sure your church has a website and that this website comes up first whenever people search for "My Town, Church" or "My town, Presbyterian", etc. The internet is the new Yellow pages. Nearly every family that has visited my church in the last five years has found us becuase of our website. This is especially true of younger, college and just-out-of-college aged people.
 Take out a regular ad in the local paper. This could possibly get expensive, but might be worth it.
 Any time your church does any "special" events (guest speakers, your pastor preaches a series on a "hot" topic, you have a church fundraising event, etc) send press releases to the local paper as well as local radio stations. They may not announce your event, but then again, they just might.


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## wsw201 (Aug 10, 2005)

> _Originally posted by sastark_
> A few ideas:
> 
> 
> ...



These are all good ideas and you should try and do as much of this as your churches budget will allow. But I have found that the best way to get the word out is through word of mouth. For a church plant its tough to get "known" in the community, but some of the best advertising and the cheapest will be the people in the church. Try and have them invite their friends and neighbors.


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## Puritanhead (Aug 10, 2005)

you could take the initiative to convert some of your pastor's audio sermons into electronic MP3 format, and list them on SermonAudio.com. Either you pay for them out of pocket, or get church to appropriate $100 or so for listing on SermonAudio.com. It costs a dollar or so to upload a sermon after paying the base $50 fee. It's good for publicity and a pastor can practically market himself-- particularly if he is good and espouses sound doctrine.


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## sastark (Aug 10, 2005)

> _Originally posted by wsw201_
> These are all good ideas and you should try and do as much of this as your churches budget will allow. But I have found that the best way to get the word out is through word of mouth. For a church plant its tough to get "known" in the community, but some of the best advertising and the cheapest will be the people in the church. Try and have them invite their friends and neighbors.



Along the "word of mouth" line of thinking....

Another very effective way of "getting the word out" about my previous church was by having church members handing out free things at any/all community events. For example, the city the church is in has a big 4th of July fireworks show. My dad (the pastor) made some flyers that had the full text of the National Anthem on one side and a little blurp about the church on the other. We handed out hundreds of these things and only had one person decline to take one. A lot of people learn about the presence of our church, and what we handed out was relevant to the event. Plus, it was very cheap to produce these flyers (7 cents a piece at Kinkos for the copies times 1,000 copies = $70 investment).


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## Richard King (Aug 10, 2005)

thanks for the input. We have a meeting tomorrow to discuss ideas for becoming more visible. I will pass the info along.


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## Scott (Aug 11, 2005)

Two words - honey angels.


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## Abd_Yesua_alMasih (Aug 11, 2005)

I believe it is important to have something more than word of mouth (but it is the best start!). When I move into a new area I feel doubtful about a church that I do not see as 'respectable' and by respectable I mean it puts effort into open 'promoting' (promoting the community can see and judge). I feel suspicious when people you know or just met in the shops or something suggest a church to you as it sounds a little secretive. I like to have a second source to look at and investigate ie. website, fliers, yellow pages etc... In this day and age just because a Church has an orthodox sounding name it does not always mean that much. Because of this my 'second source' would not be a sign outside the church. I am not sure why...

Anyway that is just some of my advice. As a young person I have had to move so much and so young in my faith (compared to older adults anyway) that hopefully I am an example of a confused young believer, just getting into theology, and not sure of what church to go to.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Aug 11, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Scott_
> Two words - honey angels.



ha ha!  It really makes the evangelistic message stick!


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## Richard King (Aug 11, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Scott_
> Two words - honey angels.



Well I know they say you can catch more flies with this stuff...


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## Scott (Aug 12, 2005)

BTW, to get a nice looking website up quick and inexpensively, check out www.forministry.com. It is completely free, does not involve putting up ads of any kind, has unlimited storage, and has easy to use templates. You don't need to know anything about html, progamming, or whatever. It is like using a word processor.


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## Puddleglum (Aug 12, 2005)

Another idea . . . if you have a local Christian radio station, you might try radio ads. I know when we were starting up our church plant, we had an ad air at the end of R.C. Sproul's broadcast. I'm not sure how many of our visitors were from that, though . . .


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