Increasing Your Visitor Flow
By Tim Massengale

Pastor Mark North moved carefully along the crowded altar area, pausing to pray with several who had come forward.  Over to his right, Elder Vernon Baker was praying with a guest who had responded to the invitation.  His hand was firmly planted on her head, and he was speaking softly in her ear.  Mascara coursed down her cheeks as she cried and prayed, both hands reaching high above her head.  Moments later she began speaking in other tongues and those gathered around her broke out in shouts of enthusiasm and worship.  Mark grinned.  That was the third one this morning.

Wanted: More Visitors
•	Want to attract more visitors?  
•	Should you put more money into advertising? 
•	 billboards? Newspaper ads? Radio spots? 
•	This will depend upon what you hope to accomplish. 
•	 Most receive few guests through advertising. 
•	Advertising works great to increase the church’s name recognition.

Role of Advertising
•	Statistically, most churches don’t get a lot of visitors from advertising. 
•	 Ninety percent or more of visitors will come because someone invited them – typically invited by their ‘oikos,’ meaning family, friends, co-workers and acquaintances.  
•	Therefore, most church growth experts consider advertising to be a poor way to increase visitor flow.  
•	What advertising does is increase your name recognition within your community. 
•	 The waitress can then say, ‘I’ve heard of that church!’ and you then have validity.  
•	Encourage a church to invest a set percentage of their gross income into advertising each year.  
•	As the church income grows, the advertising budget grows.  
•	The yellow-page ad seems to be the most effective form of advertising a church can do. 
•	 A weekly newspaper ad, billboards for Easter drama and Christmas programs, and lots of color flyers for various special services are great ways to advertise.
•	 But by far the best method is simple word-of-mouth invitations.

Give Them a Reason
•	Any time there is something special – it doesn’t have to be big or expensive – but if it is built up a little, and have a nice flyer designed, there is almost always double or more the number of visitors that day than we will have for a normal church service.  
•	So, have lots of special services.
•	Revivals, holiday services i.e. Easter, Pentecost Sunday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparents Day, July 4th, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.  
•	Dramas, song fests, church socials and picnics, Sunday school contests, and Friend Day.  
•	Try to average at least one special service every month.
•	Some of the most successful services are needs based.  
•	 Announce a special ‘healing and miracles’ service, or a service devoted to ‘healing marriages and families.’
•	Have several ‘financial blessing’ services to pray for people to find jobs, pay bills and keep their homes.  
•	There are lots of people hurting out there.  
•	God has the answer to their needs.
•	These services are special simply because time and effort is taken to make them special.  
•	Take the time to plan them well with the ministry team, do special PR in church, put up banners, promote it by power-point, put a special insert in the church bulletin, do mail-outs, and most importantly, we design a nice color flyer.  
•	Flyers make it easier for people to invite their friends and family.  
•	The flyers are used by bus workers, door knockers, street evangelism teams, and our nursing home workers.  
•	Also challenge my people regularly – three or four times a year - to help stir up excitement.  
•	Some have preached from the roof-top, worn thier suit backwards, took pies in the face, shaved their head, dove into the baptistery, kissed a pig, and more – all to challenge people to bring more visitors.  
•	For example, challenge your assistant pastor, that if his side brings more guests you’re your side, you’ll eat your tie.  
•	The church loves the fun and all get a good laugh out of it.  
•	That one hundred percent of your new converts come from your visitors.  
•	The more visitors you have, the more converts you will have.

Make It Special
•	Understand that you can only do what you are able to do.  
•	Smaller churches have less money and people.  
•	Use wisdom and not overtax your people.  
•	If that means one special service a quarter, make those four the best.  
•	If you can do one every other month, or one every six weeks, then do that.  
•	But plan them and promote them well.
•	Secondly, you will need the ministry team’s assistance.  
•	They handle most the leg work.  
•	They design the flyers, banners, contact the newspaper with news releases, and design the power point slides. 
•	Not a lot of money is needed to be spent on this.  
•	Probably the most expensive event is the Easter Drama.  
•	Other than that, invest in flyers, a couple of nice banners – one for outside and one for inside – and a few minor decorations.  
•	Most of what makes the service special is the topic upon which is preached.  
•	Try to preach with color power-point slides, with a lot of audience interaction.  
•	Use various objects for illustrations.  
•	Give your people reason to invite someone.