In the small church I pastor, have found our members are motivated to reach out when church leaders create reasons for them to invite their family and friends to church. Although we do have some outgoing personalities who constantly invite others to attend our church, most of our folks like to have an “excuse” to invite someone who does not attend.
When we plan our annual church calendar, we build in events to make it easy for all of our members to invite their friends and family. Outreach events include special musical concerts, Christmas and Easter programs, Vacation Bible School, our fall church picnic, a July cookout, Christmas caroling on a horse-drawn wagon, family film nights, and special worship services.
Planning these special opportunities helps us in two ways. First, an outreach event focuses our attention on a specific date. Rather than constantly encouraging our members to invite others to church, specific events help us rally the troops for a burst of outreach. Second, our members can see the tangible results of their invitations when those they invite actually show up.
Of course, outreach isn’t just about getting people to come to your church. The church can and should also go to people who need help. Outreach ministries that meet real-life needs provide church members with opportunities to assist others in crisis. If your members are like mine, some of them are already motivated and looking for ways to help others.
On a crisp Saturday in October, 93 of our church members joined other churches in our area to help our community in several ways. Our members gave out quarters in the local Laundromat, collected and gave away over 200 winter coats, repaired a widow’s kitchen floor, built a handicapped ramp, packed 35 disaster relief buckets for a local charity, and collected canned goods for our local food pantry. In each of these outreach events two goals were achieved: we helped others, and we reached out to people we had never met before.
How do you motivate small churches for outreach? Help people find ways they can naturally reach out to others. That’s the best motivator for outreach that our church has found.
