Discover Your Most Powerful Outreach Tool

It doesn’t hang on your building. You can’t send it through the mail.  Your most powerful outreach tool can only be found in the seats of your church services. Yes—it’s the members of your own congregation. However, like a race car sitting in a garage, your members’ “outreach power” is only useful if put into practice. Your challenge is to help all church attenders unleash their outreach power and reach their full potential in Christ, so they can effectively outreach to your community.

The church, after all, is people—not a building or a corporate entity. As church leadership, we have a responsibility to encourage and empower people toward effective personal evangelism. And while direct mail, advertising and other promotional efforts can be very effective, the guest who walks through your door at the invitation of a friend is most likely to become a part of your church because he/she already has a relational connection. Complete the outreach cycle at your church by equipping your attenders to be inviters. Here are some tips:

• Empower. Make “outreach thinking” the norm among the people in your church and provide training to make them more comfortable and effective. Resources like “Contagious Christianity,” “Lifestyle Evangelism,” “Living Proof” and others can help empower your members with the ability and desire to reach out.
• Facilitate. Provide seeker-friendly services and special events to give the congregation natural invitation opportunities.
• Equip. Once outreach events and/or services are planned, equip your attenders with outreach tools to help them at the point of connection. Business-card sized InviteCards are a great tool that people can carry all the time. Handy flyers, brochures or cards are other tools that also work well. Make sure each tool has all the information someone would need in order to be able to take action, including directions, times and contact numbers.