If you don’t have a ministry, then this post probably isn’t for you, but don’t just click away it. Forward it to your pastor or to someone who you know who has a ministry.

If you do have a ministry, then please read on.

Every ministry needs to have a website.

The Internet offers a ministry the ability to reach so many more people now that if you don’t have a website. Without an Internet presence, you have to work so much harder to reach people with your message.

So this tip assumes that you already have a ministry website.

Most church websites are nothing more than just an electronic business card offering contact information and directions to a church.

There is so much more that a website can do to not only spread your message, but also to get people engaged.

Businesses use their websites strategically to get more clients.

Churches can also use their websites to get more members.

Most church websites, however, are not using their Internet presence to its full capacity.

Here is one tip that can help.

Magnetic Tip #1: Add testimonials to your website.

Every successful business website will have testimonials of people who are happy with their service or product. Prospective clients or customers see these testimonials and buy.

Churches can also incorporate testimonials to gain more visitors.

All they have to do is get a handful of members who would be willing to say a few kind words about the ministry. Here’s what you do once you have a few volunteers:

1.     Take their picture. Add their picture to the website near their quote.
2.     Place the quote on the web page in “italics and within quotes.”
3.     Include the member’s name in a caption that also has “member since …(year)”

Have a representative from different groups in your church that you’re trying to attract – seniors, young adults, married couples, children, youth, singles, etc.

Testimonials will go a long way to help convince visitors to your website to be visitors to your church.

I hope this tip was helpful.

As you know, as of  today, I’m in the process of writing a manual for ministries to help them have a greater impact by using strategies like this one and others that I’ve learned over the years.
It’s almost done. I’m planning on making it available in mid-November 2012.

If you’re interested in getting on the Early Bird list to get a special discount coupon when it does come out, just click here and sign up.

Again, if you’re not a minister, please forward this link to your pastor or to anybody who you know who has a ministry. I’m sure it will help them.

Until next time,

Blessed!

Sam

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Effective Church Growth Strategies for Christian Leaders

Article by John Collins

Many new found churches aspire to know the secrets of church growth. Studies, conferences and books are full with advice on effective church growth strategies that Christian leaders should consider to become mega churches. These recommendations usually come from churches that experienced significant growth and success stories. Christian churches believe that only God can make a church grow and that growth is defined not in numbers but in the quality of its members. However, this does not stop them from finding ways to better serve God and the congregation.

One of the conferences that taught effective church growth strategies was How to Grow a High Impact Church Conference. It aims to encourage and empower church leaders to grow a church with high impact. It emphasizes that having a high impact is not just about growing in number but is concerned with making a difference in the community, the result of which is giving glory to God for what He extraordinarily does through ordinary people. High impact churches have three salient characteristics: lost people come to Christ, found people begin to mature and the church influences the community. Churches are taught to understand the twelve laws of building a healthy growing church:

The Law of Purpose– growing churches know the purpose of the church, which is to have a great commitment to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.

Te Law of Expectation- they believe in the natural, supernatural and imperative growth of the church.

The Law of design- they empower leaders to equip members for service.

The Law of Liberation- they train members to exercise their spiritual gifts.

The Law of Dependency-they have members that spend regular times of prayer and fasting individually and corporately.

The Law of Structure- they understand that there are God ordained roles and functions within the church and they understand their church structures

The Law of Inspiration-they are devoted to develop and enhance worship service.

The Law of Focus- they have an outward focus and emphasize evangelism in obedience to God’s commission.

The Law of Community- they care and shepherd their flocks through small groups

The Law of Intentionality- they proactively develop church plans and courses to take to fulfill their mission.

The Law of Love- growing churches promotes a loving and caring fellowship among its members

The Law of the Kingdom- they promote unity with likeminded churches through joint prayer, worship, interaction and support in times of need.

C. A. Schwarz conducted a study to determine the causes of church growth. The survey, which was attended by 4.2 million respondents in 32 countries, served as the basis of determining a number of distinguishing attributes of a healthy growing church. These are: an effective leadership, convenient outlets for spiritual gifts, passion and desire for service, ideal facilities and resources, exalting praise and worship, growth through discipleship and small groups, consistently reaching out to the lost, and healthy relationships between members. The study concludes that people can and should do effective church growth strategies. However, people should also understand what they could not do because it is in God’s domain.

About the Author

Are you looking for more information regarding effective church growth strategies? Visit http://www.trinitylivingtoday.com/Church-Growth-Course.html today!

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My Pastor thought it was a great idea.

I know I’m not the first person to think of this idea, but I don’t think it’s that common, so I thought I’d share it here.

This is what I told my Pastor in the email:

1. We all know  people who are not Christians.

2. Many of these people are looking for answers. Right now, because of the poor economy or other factors, many people are looking for help.

3. Not all members of the  church have the capability to witness. They don’t have the communication skills or they’re too new in the Lord to be able to share all that God can offer or they’re just shy.

4. In a lot of these cases, the members will either give the non-Christian the Pastor’s phone number, invite them to church, or unfortunately, do nothing.

What I offered my Pastor was a way to use the church’s website to give the members another tool that they can use to reach their non-saved friends. The members want to help, but just don’t know how.

Here is the idea:

1. Create a link on the church’s home page that lead to a page that’s called, “Hope For You” or “God’s Answers” or “Change Your Life” or something like that.

2. On that page, the visitor can find a video of the Pastor explaining how God can change a person’s life. Who better to give this message than the Pastor of the church?

3. The video would include a short message of hope, leading in the Sinner’s Prayer, and finally an invitation to visit the church.

For those shy members who want to help their non-Christian friend or relative, all they have to do is give them the web address of the church’s website, and the friend could watch the video in the non-threatening surroundings of their own home.

Even if the friend doesn’t receive Christ, at least the seed has been planted, and planted by the Pastor of the church.

So Sam, how do you do all this?  How do you get video on our website?

It’s easy.

Here is the simplest way I know to accomplish this. It uses YouTube as the host.

And by the way, you can also have other videos on the website – announcements, scenes from the recent play, a video clip of the praise and worship, etc.

1. Create your video. You can use any camera that records video. Some churches have top of the line, expensive cameras, but you can use a basic digital camera with video capabilities. I recommend using one of the new low-cost, YouTube-ready video cameras at this link like the Flip or the Xi8.

2. Upload your video to YouTube.

3. Once uploaded, get the embed code that YouTube gives you.

4. Insert the code into the page where you want the video to appear. Your web designer should know how to do this. If not, feel free to email me.

That’s it.

Now, your church’s website can be used not only to give out information about your church, but it can also be used to reach the world for Jesus. You don’t even have to advertise. The members of your church will do that every time they meet someone who is in need of what God has to give.

I know a lot of churches already do this, and the best part is that once the members are told about the video page, you have an entire congregation who have now been enabled with another soul-reaching tool. It doesn’t only fall on the shoulders of the Pastor or on the evangelistic team. Anybody can say, “Hey, you should take a look at our church’s website. You might find what you’re looking for.”

What do you think? Does your church already do this?

Send me a link, so I can add it here as an example.

Thank you,

Blessed!

Sam

Hello again,

It’s been a while, but I’m back with another tip on how you can increase the numbers of visitors to your website.

Again, the whole point of having a website is to promote whatever it is you have to offer, and in the case of a ministry website, what we have to offer is Christ.

So in this post, I want to give you another strategy that you can use to get more people stopping by your site.

I call it The Free Gift.

Everybody likes free gifts.

UponThisRock.com has grown by giving away free graphics.

So, to get more people stopping by your site, you have to offer some kind of free gift. When I say a free gift, I’m talking about a gift that has some kind of value to your visitors.

Take a look at your site. What do you offer for free?

What I’ve found is that a lot of ministry sites will give out a lot of information about their ministry, but there is nothing that the visitor can take away with them other than that information.

What is there that will bring that visitor back?

What is there that the visitor can share about your site with their friends?

“Hey, you need to stop by my church’s website. You get a free gift.”

So, what kind of gift can you give away?

Here are some ideas:

1. An audio file of your worship team.

2. A downloadable  PDF version of your message. Have a new one each week.

3. An e-book related to your ministry.

4. A calendar or address book (Add your ministry’s name and address.)

5. Coupons for discounts at your ministry bookstore, if you have one.

You can be creative with this. Think of what you can offer your visitors to keep them coming back week after week.

It has to be free, and it has to have some kind of value.

I’m interested to know if you already offer a free gift on your ministry’s site.

Thank you,

Blessed!

Sam

Photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27812617@N07/

Hello again,

Thank you for stopping by again.  I missed another day. Sorry. I hope you weren’t too disappointed when you stopped by yesterday and didn’t see a post. I’m being sarcastic. I don’t know if anybody is even reading these posts.

Anyway, just in case there are people interested in having a Blessed 2011, here we go with the last of my resolutions.

My 10^th resolution to have a more blessed 2011 is to smile more.

Yup. That’s what I said. To me that’s a pretty big deal. My normal facial expression is that of someone who is grumpy or upset about something.

I’ve been told too many times, “When I first saw you, I thought you were mean or hard to get along with. Then I get to know you, and I realized you’re a pretty funny guy.”

As a Christian, I need to change that first impression that I’m giving. I don’t want people to think that I’m upset or angry, because I’m not.

I’m a pretty happy guy. I love life. God has been very good to me.

This is the message I want my face to tell people.

Here’s what the Bible says:

Proverbs 15:30 (New Living Translation)

A cheerful look brings joy to the heart;
good news makes for good health.

I want my cheerful look to bring joy to the hearts of every person I meet.

I want people to see me and see a happy person. In the middle of this tough economy, I want to be that happy guy, that peaceful guy, the guy who isn’t stressed out about what’s happening around him.

That’s when people will want to know what it is that keeps me smiling all the time. That’s when I’ll be able to share the source of my joy and peace – Jesus.

Because it will take an effort on my part to make the corners of my mouth turn upwards, I told the congregation that they have the permission to say, “Smile Sam!”

I’ve already been reminded a couple of times.

I’m confident that when I start demonstrating the joy of the Lord more on my face, I’m going to have a more blessed 2011.

So there you have it. My 10 Resolutions for a Blessed 2011.

1. Eat More

2. Communicate with my Heavenly Father More

3. Love More

4. Give More

5. Praise More

6. Evangelize More

7. Get Involved More

8. Worship More

9.Complain Less and

10. Smile More

I hope you can come along with me and keep some of these promises in your life. I know God is going to bless me more if I can keep them.

I would love to hear from you. What are your thoughts?

Thanks again for stopping by.

Here’s to a blessed 2011!

Sam

Hello again,

Thank you for your visit. I was hoping to have one of these every day, but I couldn’t keep that promise. Sorry. Hopefully, keeping these promises will be easier.

Today I’m sharing my 9^th Resolution for a Blessed 2011 – Complain Less.

This is one promise that I know I’m going to have a hard time keeping.

I catch myself complaining about everything – or rather, my wife catches me complaining.

I complain about the slow driver in front of me on the freeway.

I complain about the remote control being lost.

I complain about computer running too slow.

I complain about the toe on my foot that bothers me.

This, I’ve promised, has got to stop.

The Bible reminds us:

Ephesians 4:29 (King James Version)

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

What comes out of my mouth has to be something that edifies the listener.

What kind of a witness can I be when instead of talking about the good things that God has done for me, I’m busy complaining about the inconveniences of life?

What I told the congregation is that when we complain about something that bothers us, we are actually exalting that problem. We are giving importance to whatever we are complaining about.

This year, I’m going to exalt the goodness of God.

This year, I’m going to focus on what is right, and not on what is wrong.

This year, what comes out of my mouth will testify of what God is doing in my life.

This year, I’m going to complain less.

I would like to say that I will not complain at all, but I think in this case, I need to take baby steps.

I told the members of my church that I’m going to try and change my complaints into praises.

For example, instead of saying, “My toe hurts,” I’m going to say, “Praise God that nine of my ten toes don’t hurt.”

Instead of saying, “My mother-in-law is coming to visit for two weeks,” I’m going to say, “Praise God, for 50 of the 52 weeks of the year, my mother-in-law won’t be at my house.” (My apologies to mother-in-laws.)

I am going to not let the bad economy tempt me into complaining. Instead, I’m going to focus on God’s promises, and testify about them.

I know that when I complain less, I will be a greater testimony of God’s goodness, which will lead to a more blessed 2011.

How about you?

Have you noticed an increase in your complaints?

Can you promise to complain less?

One more to go.

See you tomorrow.

Thank you,

Blessed!

Sam

Hello again,

Thank you for visiting my blog .

Today I’m sharing my 8^th Resolution for a Blessed 2011 – Worship More.

Being the director of the praise and worship team at my church, I am conscience of the idea and importance of worship.

Worship is different than praise in that praise is thanking God for what He has done, and worship is exalting Him for who He is.

Angels worship. Technically, angels can’t praise, because God hasn’t done anything for them. Angels are constantly in the presence of God, and that closeness to His holiness causes them to worship Him.

That’s what I want to do more of this year.

Yes, I will praise him out of gratitude for what He has done in my life, but I will also find time to just exalt Him, tell Him He is worthy, holy, awesome. I want to worship Him more.

The Bible tells us:

John 4:23-24 (King James Version)

23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Here it tells us what God is looking for. God is looking for worshippers.

I want God to find me this year.

I believe that the more I worship, the more God will focus His attention on me, because He is looking for people who are exalting Him.

My eighth resolution this year is to worship more. I know that keeping this promise will not only make God bigger in my life, but it will make the problems smaller. How can it not? The more I exalt God, the smaller everything else will become.

That’s when I’ll see more blessings.

That’s when I’ll have a blessed 2011.

Will you make that promise? Will you worship God more?

We’re almost done. Two more resolutions to go.

See you tomorrow,

Thanks,

Blessed!

Sam