That phrase, "I wish we had discovered you sooner" is something we hear at Calvary Fellowship all the time; especially at our Newcomer Potlucks. I supposed it could make some feel good, but but it always makes me feel disappointed in our efforts to get the word out, and it drives me to try harder.
One of the many challenges of being a portable church is you have no building to create awareness of your church as people in your community drive by. We meet in a high school so when people drive by it, guess what they see? Right, a high school. Except of course on Sunday mornings when we have our eye-catching bright orange a-frame signs out screaming for attention.
One of the ways to create awareness is to take it to the web. If you don't have a building to create awareness you have to have a good web presence to help people know you exist. Fortunately, we have been committed to this since the start and our web presence is strong and growing.
Still we realize that we are missing opportunities. When people move into a new area they are in a time of transition. They haven't met anyone yet and they are looking to get connected into the community. During this time they are most likely to try something new, like a church. However, they are so busy settling in and getting adjusted that they are probably not Googling "churches" to find us, especially if they are not Christians yet.
With all of this in mind we are returning to a strategy of sending a direct mail postcard (see below) to every person new to the community. This one will go to anyone who has moved into our area in the past 12 months, and to everyone who moves in going forward. Our goal with this piece is to welcome each person to the community, make them aware of our church, show them what we are like, and to invite them to visit us. And we hope that more people will indeed discover us sooner!
Looks great! I like it!
Posted by: Mandy | March 16, 2011 at 02:20 PM