We sometimes get asked about how established churches can utilize some of the things that we’ve tried at Urban Village. Here are a few thoughts on evangelism (with a major hat tip to my colleague Trey Hall who is the mastermind behind a lot of this):
1. Get out of the building. Anywhere there’s going to be a crowd of people, you should try to be there. For us, that’s meant having tables at street festivals and being creative about what you provide at those tables (chances for people to win a free dinner, free tote bags where they can put their own screen on them, one church last year had a lot of magazines and invited people to make buttons), walking in the Pride Parade, doing ashes on the streets for Ash Wednesday, giving out cards and candy on the street at Halloween as people are trick or treating, general flyering in public places (coffee shops, etc.).
2. Train laity on how to invite. We haven’t done this as much recently, but initially we spent intentional time at community gatherings teaching people how to invite someone to church. We do (and Trey’s doing this as we relaunch at Wicker Park in the mornings) hold people accountable to inviting specific people to events/worship. We remind people at the end of worship to invite someone next week. We have “just for them” events that are non-churchy gatherings that people may feel comfortable inviting folks to (e.g. we had a benefit for a non-profit arts education organization that was a wine & cheese gathering–we mentioned very briefly who we were, but it got quite a few people there). Train folks on how to invite people to worship but also create events outside of the church building, too.
3. Have a strong internet presence. Again, it’s not just Facebook or Twitter. It’s Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Find-a-Church (UMC site), Stumbleupon, etc. All of these things (I think) help search engine optimization so when someone in your area is looking for a church on Google, yours will come up sooner rather than later. A strong web site, of course, is a must, too. This is huge for reaching young adults, of course, but this will surely be even more vital in years to come.