5 Best Tips For Effective Outreach Strategies

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Churches don’t grow by accident. Just as a garden that produces an abundance of fruit and vegetables doesn’t sprout out of the ground without anyone tiling the ground, planting the seeds, or tending the produce – neither does a church spontaneously erupt with growth and new souls without intentional effort being poured into it. Intentional is a word that many churches lose sight of over the course of time. Church planters very intentionally reach for people. If we didn’t we would be staring at the four walls waiting for souls to happen upon our (usually meager) gathering place.

All churches begin with outreach, yet, most churches have a tendency to become satisfied with the status quo somewhere along the way. We lose the hunger to grow, the desire to reach outside of ourselves, and the drive to see outreach as a vital part of a thriving church. If you’re here, then you’re on the right track to being intentional about the growth of your church. Let’s take a look at what outreach strategies are, why they matter, and the best tips to develop outreach strategies that work for your church.

The First Things To Know About Outreach Strategies

An outreach strategy is merely having a game plan. Choosing to be intentional about reaching outside of your church congregation into the community and not expecting growth to appear out of thin air. It’s being willing to till the ground, plant the seeds, and tend to the results. An outreach strategy is knowing that you might not see growth overnight, but understanding the principle of sowing and reaping in the scriptures. If we sow seeds of reaching for the lost, we will reap a harvest for the kingdom of heaven. So we make a plan, we share our vision, and we get to work. 

The Value Of Having Outreach Strategies of Your Own

Every church is different. What works in an outreach strategy for the rural southern church can be ineffective for the west coast metro area church. While there can be some best practices across the board, whatever your locale, the target audience will not be the same for the country church singing out of hymnals as it will be for the city church with lyrics projected on a 20-foot screen on the back of the platform.

Each of these churches can have tremendous impact in their community and further the kingdom of heaven right where they are, if they are intentional with their outreach efforts. The best way to achieve this is to develop an outreach strategy that is fitting for your personal church culture. While you can draw from the good ideas of churches of all sizes and locations across the country – for best results you will need to shape the strategy to flow with your identity as a church.

If you can’t truly pinpoint what your culture and identity is as a church, you will need to take the first step of hashing that out among your leaders or core team. Talk about your vision for the future, the demographics of your community, and the heartbeat of who you are and who Jesus has called you to be as a local Body. After you have established these things is the right time to work on developing a unique outreach strategy for your church. 

Now, let’s talk about some tips for doing just that!

5 Tips On Developing Impactful Outreach Strategies

1. Get To Know The Outreach Organizations In Your Community

One of the first things I would recommend to any church before trying to develop an outreach program is to get to know the outreach organizations already existing within their community. Your community may not benefit from replica programs as much as it could benefit your church pouring resources and volunteer hours into already thriving programs that are doing needful things. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel if you can contribute to something incredible that’s happening on a regular basis in your area.

By finding an organization (or a few organizations) that you can partner with to better serve your area you will build a good rapport with like-minded people who may, or may not, have a home church in addition to showing the love of Jesus to whatever cross-section of your community they are assisting. You will be putting feet on the gospel while making connections. That’s a great way to build a foundation for any outreach strategy.

Think of the impact of a group of 25 people from your church showing up at the local soup kitchen, cheerfully making and serving meals to those experiencing financial hardship. Think of the impact of a group of 15 volunteers showing up from your church to the nursing home to be a listening ear, sing hymns, and pray with those who are lonely. Think of the impact of your church contributing to the local Meals On Wheels program so they can feed more people than they ever have before.

Whatever cause or underserved group in your community resonates with the heartbeat of your church and the Word of God – find a way to connect and in doing so reach into the community that surrounds you. 

2. Make Yourself Useful To Your Community

Does your mayor know the name of your church? Does your church come to mind when people are trying to find information on community resources? Do your public schools know they can call you when they see serious needs in the lives of their students?

An excellent way to develop an impactful outreach strategy is to open lines of communication with municipal entities and become a connecting point for the people of your surrounding area even if they do not attend your church. People finding your church helpful and eager to serve others beyond the borders of your congregation can eventually be the catalyst to them knowing where they want to go to church when they are ready to walk through the doors of one.

As you do this, you will start to hone in on a strategy that is effective for your local body to reach others with the love of Jesus, the hope of the gospel, and you will begin to define your church as the place where they can truly encounter these things.

Become known as people who are generous, kind, wise, supportive, compassionate, and honest. Become known as a church that doesn’t just love the people who sit on its pews. Become known as a fixture in your community. Open doors, open hearts, open arms. As individuals who work a secular job, we would strive to make our value seen to our employers and fellow employees. As churches within a community, we should strive to make our value seen by those we are called to reach. 

3. Be Comfortable With Your Church Identity

It’s important that after we’ve established our identity, and start to develop outreach strategies that flow with that identity, we OWN that identity. If you’re the simple church, be the simple church. If you’re the Matthew 25 church, be the Matthew 25 church. If you’re the rocking kid’s program church, be the rocking kid’s program church. If you’re the first church of the misfits, be the first church of the misfits. Whatever you have boiled your identity and culture down to – be comfortable with being who you are. There ARE people in your community who NEED what you have to offer at your church. You are the right fit for more people than you think.

If you have a ton of kids and that makes your church a little rambunctious then take ownership of being a safe place for young families to thrive and grow in Jesus without fear of constantly being asked to step out of the room with a kid who makes a noise. If your church has a blooming seniors ministry and that makes your place of worship a little less hopping and a little more gray when looking from the back of the room then take ownership that people with a lot of life experience find what you offer to be of substance and of firm foundation.

As Christians, we are encouraged to become all things to all men that we might win some, but as a Church Body we cannot attempt to marry every style and method of doing church into our identity or we will end up looking more like the Bride of Frankenstein than the Bride of Christ.

You can absolutely attract people from a true variety of backgrounds and socio-economic statuses, for such is the kingdom of God, but ultimately an effective church has a common heartbeat that runs through the veins of its members. If your church is to have an effective outreach it must have a solid identity and not be embarrassed or confused about who it is as a whole. 

4. Become A Hospital And Not A Country Club

One of the greatest forms of community outreach is a reputation for being a safe place to encounter or get to know Jesus without fear of judgment or rejection. When people in your area start realizing that your church is phenomenal at loving broken people then you will be floored by who begins to walk through your doors. It’s more effective than any phone calls or cold emails could ever be.

No amount of mailers could ever touch the impact of having a reputation for loving people well, consistently, over the long haul. There’s nothing you could put in the subject line of your mass emails that will catch the attention of the hurting soul like someone sharing with them how they were welcomed with open arms in your church assembly in spite of their messy past.

Our churches must become hospitals of healing for the hurting rather than country clubs for the complacent Christians. When we learn that this is a powerful outreach strategy that lines up with the heart and the message of Jesus then we will find ourselves eating at the same tables He ate at and (proverbially) flipping the ones that displeased Him. We will sit with people in the middle of the crowd who wish to stone them and offer hope instead of being concerned with whether or not they bring the level of class down in our gatherings.

We will become a beacon of hope for the broken and, trust me, they will tell their friends. No one shouts from the mountaintops like the soul that has been loved back from the brink of hell. The best advertisement there is on the planet is word of mouth. Steer your church towards developing a heart for people and getting used to the pews being filled with those the Pharisees were offended at seeing Jesus rub shoulders with and you will have the makings of an outreach strategy that resembles that of the first church in the Book of Acts. 

5. Empower And Equip Your Congregants 

A major and prevalent pitfall of creating outreach programs or strategies for the local assembly is that it is often a process gone into with the notion that the pastor, leadership team, and department heads are who will lead the charge in effective outreach. So many churches have pews filled with people who are waiting for someone else to go into all the world and make disciples while they merely sing three songs, put a dollar in the offering plate, and walk out of the back door at the end of the sermon.

People who are good, devoted believers, but have maybe been given the wrong impression over the years that outreach was something the pastor does on Saturday morning and not a lifestyle that all believers are called to within the great commission. We know the scripture that says that one can set a thousand to flight and two can set ten thousand to flight. Can we imagine together what outreach begins to look like if we go from the pastor reaching for a few souls when he’s not tending to the mounting needs of his congregation to the bulk of the members in the church considering it their personal mission to reach souls in their community?

If the people outside of your church go from receiving an occasional invite from a random member of your faith community to seeing your church t-shirts on smiling and kind folks throughout the week, hearing how wonderfully God is moving at your gatherings, and encountering people from your church who are excited about what God has done in their lives?

Empower your congregants to be a part of the outreach that flows from your church. Not just to show up on work days in the community, but to see themselves as vital to the growth of the church and the saving of souls in your community. To see themselves as missionaries of the gospel of Jesus Christ over pew warmers without a purpose. Equip your congregants to have an effective witness. Teach classes on sharing their faith. Offer them Bible Study resources and make sure they know how to walk through them.

Set them up for success by way of understanding that reaching souls for the kingdom of God is a long game and not an overnight achievement. That loving people towards Jesus is sometimes inch by inch and not always mile by mile. Share your vision for outreach with everyone in your church, not just your leadership team. Get them on board and let them run with their own ideas, as they work in conjunction with your outreach strategies and church identity. If one can reach a few, how many can you all reach together?

What Makes It An Effective Strategy?

Not every strategy that you come up with as a church or leadership team will be effective. Not every strategy will be effective right away. Consistently be willing to look at your strategies under a microscope with other people who are like-minded, but willing to speak the truth in love when something’s not working. Make a plan and then be willing to alter the plan as needed. Be willing to scrap the plan and go back to the drawing board. Let the plan grow with your church as the increase comes.

How will you know that you have indeed put in place an effective outreach strategy? When you start seeing lives changed as they get grounded in your community of faith, whether that is a single soul or dozens. Effective outreach isn’t actually measured in earthly metrics, it’s measured in moments of surrender to Jesus Christ by those who were once far from Him. 

Remember, God Is Intentional

Churches don’t grow by accident. Whatever methods or ideas you end up choosing to implement as outreach strategies for your church – you will be better off picking a starting point and running with a concept than wistfully dreaming of growth that never comes because you don’t have a plan of action. God is intentional in all He does. He intentionally created our world and everything in it.

He intentionally created you and the local Body of Christ that you serve. He intentionally planted you where you are with the skills that you have and the desire He placed within you to reach the lost. He made you for this time and this season. Every step, every part, is full of intentional design. God doesn’t work in accidental circumstances or coincidences. We shouldn’t expect His church to grow that way.

God has great work to accomplish in and through you and your church. You are the light of the world, the light of your city or town. Take these tips for developing impactful outreach strategies, find what works for your assembly, and go make disciples. 

Read More:

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How To Expand Your Small Church Outreach 

3 Creative School Outreach Ideas To Help In Your Community