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When you distribute flyers for vacation Bible school, you go to neighborhoods with kids, not to retirement villages. When you're trying to attract Gen Xers, you put ads for special church concerts in the local newspaper.

Target evangelism is not an attempt to exclude anyone. Rather, it's a method that helps churches deal better with economic realities. Most churches do not have the resources to provide programs for every sociographic or generational group of people. If you can afford to minister to everyone, then do so. If you are working with a limited budget, however, then you must decide whom you will target with your message.

Percept (800-442-6277) can help a church define the sociographic groups in its ministry area. Using U.S. Census Bureau information, Percept provides a demographic breakdown of an area that includes age, income, population change, race, and what it calls "U.S. lifestyle segments."

By overlaying information gathered from its surveys on lifestyle segments, Percept projects people's preferences in church programs, faith, worship, music, and advertising methods.

A church can ask for demographic reports according to zip codes, a specific radius around its building, or a specific area it has defined in the community. The package of information the church receives includes a description of how the data were gathered, an explanation of the characteristics of the U.S. lifestyle segments, and colored graphs for use on an overhead projector.

Churches that are working with demographic evangelism include the following:

The Newest Church in Marin. Charles Handren, who is working on starting a church in Marin, California, doesn't yet have a name for the new church. But he and the sponsoring church, Hillside Church of Marin, have a clear picture of the ministry field. With the help of Percept's Map and Compass programs, Handren knows what kind of people live in Marin, where they live, and what programs will most likely attract them to church.

Harvest Community Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dan Lewis used some other high-tech resources to learn about his target group. He started a ministry with Generation Xers in February, and the church is already averaging 140 in worship. Though Lewis gained some insight from the demographic materials he purchased, he believes that's no replacement for getting to know people by knocking on their doors and living among them in a target area. Instead of mailing advertisements for the new church to a specific target group, Lewis has found it more cost-efficient to do a saturation mailing. He has designed special mailers for Generation Xers.

One way to understand the people in a potential ministry field is to view them as members of a unique generation. People who lived through the Depression, for example, operate differently than people who came of age during the Vietnam conflict. And baby boomers have different goals and beliefs than recent college graduates who are just beginning their careers.

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