12 times ”yes”

Before COVID, the average first time visitor experienced 3 to 5 touches before they visited a church. They saw a billboard, met a person from that church, then that person texted them, then they showed up on a Sunday. Simple.

Now, a first time visitor will have 12 to 15 touches before they try a church out.

That’s way more!

There are a couple reasons I can think of for this.

First is trust. Trust in institutions is low across the board, and there is no exception for religion. This may be part of the story of outreach: though people are largely open to having a religious experience and people are pursuing truth, many hold hurts and preconceived beliefs about pastors and church leaders that keep people away.

We do need to work on building trust in our community.

Second is that we are bombarded with “touches” from every sector. If you, as a church, place a Facebook ad, realize that you are not special in doing so. There are so many advertisements washing over our brains everyday. Buy this, go here, do this.

It may be that we need so many touch points because we are so touched-out.

How do we get a higher rate of return on our outreach, and more people to say “yes”?

I think that church is one of the most unique experiences in the world when we do it right. So, when our main way of getting our name and likeness out into the world is creating an ad on Facebook or posting a tweet, it does little to move the needle in a world inundated with messaging. You look like everyone else.

I think you should have ads, but there is another component more powerful.

The component that serves us the most is creating an exciting culture in-church that people want to invite their friends to.

Once you have created this and a friend invites their friend, then your advertisement may hold some weight.

Word of mouth is undefeated. And in a world of digital, a personal invite feels radical.

If you liked this post, or you feel like it would start a good conversation, please share this with your friends and ask them to subscribe.

It would help me a lot. Thanks for reading! 

More from the Spark Newsletter universe

New videos coming out weekly: https://youtube.com/@thejacobhayward?si=JHgwOjGP_-FwY3l0

Follow me on X for newest updates: https://x.com/thejacobhayward?s=21