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Attendance Promotions
The use of "means" to win some. Paul said, "That I might by all means win some..."1 Cor.9:22 Tools that we can put into the hands of our people to help them get their friends and others within their sphere of influence under the sound of the gospel. A proper use of the flesh to accomplish spiritual goals. God uses "sanctified" flesh to accomplish His purposes. Who does God really need anyway? Did He really need David? Did He really need David's sling? He has CHOSEN the foolish things OF THIS WORLD.
So let's have an Attendance Contest ! Everybody likes a contest! We'll have a lot of fun, we won't set any goals except the goal of winning the contest. And in the doing of it we will break our attendance record! This Promotion is really good for churches on the small side. And I personally promoted the preaching attendance rather than the Sunday School attendance. So the count was always for the preaching service. Can be used for either.
My plan is to lay out for you how to organize the best Attendance Promotion I have ever used in all my years of pasturing. After I lay out the organizing of it I will say a few VERY NECESSARY things to remember in promoting it and in executing it.
Blue & Gold Contest
#1. Divide the church into two teams. Do this on paper first. Every body except the Pastor is on a team. As best you can, make the teams equal in numbers of faithful attenders and numbers of dead beats. Use common sense in choosing who goes on which team. You don't want to divide families or perhaps even close friends. Divide staff between the two teams. If you are not that knowledgeable about who is attending get someone who is to make up the teams.
#2. Choose who you would like to have as captains over each team. In choosing your captains you are not looking for people with leadership qualities. You are looking for one of the more recent persons who have started attending your church. Why? Because you are looking for someone who has a fresh circle of family and friends who will do their best to help him win the contest. You have probably already tapped out most of the people who have been attending for the longest time. Captains can always choose lieutenants to help them. Of course you understand that there are some people otherwise qualified but who do not have the personality for being a captain. For them to lose a contest would be the end of the world. Each team will elect the captain you have already chosen. I'll tell you how we are going to do it in a little bit.
#3. On the Sunday before the contest is to begin have copies of the two teams to pass out. Read off the names and add those who were left off equally between the two teams. We will also elect the captains at this time. Here is the way we will do it. The pastor or whoever is in charge of promoting the contest will say, "OK, Everybody on the Blue Team stand up. We need to elect a Captain. We want this election to be fair so everybody can vote. Now I had a dream the other night and I dreamed that Bro.So & So was your captain, isn't that something! Would anybody want to nominate Bro. So & So? OK, would anybody want to make a motion that nominations cease? Ok, all in favor say,aye! All in favor of Bro, So & So being your captain say, aman. And Bro. So & So is voted in by popular acclimation!" You get the idea. You will elect the Gold team captain much the same way and everybody has a lot of fun in the meantime. Each captain should have the opportunity to give their teams a "pep talk".
#4. The Dates of the Contest. October was always a good month for us. It was only four Sundays but this kept the contest from being tiresome or weary for the people. A five Sunday month would probably work ok too but I never had much success with a contest that any longer than five Sundays.
#5. The prize for winning. On a given Sunday after the contest, sooner the better, the losing team would feed the winning team. Though it was not the prize so much as the competition itself that got everybody excited and wanting to win.
Very Important Things To Do To Make The Most of It.
1. If you possibly can, put out a newsletter each week promoting the contest. Keep it before the people. At the end of this page I will give examples that we have used.
2. Have a weekly prize for the captain whose team won that week and a weekly penalty for the captain whose team lost. Sometimes you can do both at one time. Winning captain gets to put a cream pie in the face of the losing captain. How bout this, losing captain pushes winning captain around the auditiorium in a portable throne (wheelbarrow). Winning captain gets a Bible or free lunch losing captain gets his tie cut off. (Be careful about this. He could take it but his wife, Korean, couldn't. Felt humiliated, lost that family.)
3. The pastor will count for which ever team is behind. The idea is not to allow one team to get too far ahead. It discourages the other team and they may want to quit.
4. Prizes may be offered to any team member who brings the most visitors on a given Sunday.
5. Each Sunday have a blackboard, or whatever, with the Score on it. Big enough for all to see. The Blue Team has so many. The Gold Team has so many. So many points for today's team members, so many points for today's visitors= total so much added to last weeks score- such and such a team is ahead!
6. POINTS- Let each team member count for 100 points. Let each visitor count for 300 points the first day and each day they come.
7. The counting process. A small church can have the teams line up on both sides of the building. "Everybody on the Blue team on this side, everybody on the Gold team on this side." If you count as a regular team member on the Blue team raise your hand. (Count'em)If you count as a visitor for the Blue team raise your hand. (Count'em) Add the numbers and put on blackboard. Gold team same way.
A larger church will just have the team members stand. "All the regular team members on the blue team stand. (Count'em) Everybody counting as a visitor for the Blue team stand. (Count'em) etc.
From the Nursery to the Junior Churches have attendance forms ready to be filled out giving the totals in each for both teams and add this to the auditorium totals.
Make it clear throughout that this is a fun time for the church. The only real loser is the devil!
This Contest could be modified for a single SS class also. I have also used it taking a count at each service. Sunday am & pm & wed.
Being in the NorthWest I have used this contest in a modified form and called it "The Lewis and Clerk" contest. One team was Lewis and the other team was Clerk. We tracked the Lewis and Clerk Expedition across the country and dressed in frontier style. The winning captain won a .50 cal. muzzle loader.
Double Click Image for a larger version.
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During my pastorate at Calvary Baptist church, Roy, Wa. our highest one day attendances were on Friend Day. We only had three of them beginning in 1999. We had them two years apart. Since we were averaging around 300 and you are supposed to double if you do it right we set a goal of 600 for the first Friend Day. We had 645.
Here is the way we did it. I bought the "Friend Day" kit from Elmer Towns (I just went to "friend day" on my browser and went to his page where in a pdf format you can print out most of what I bought for free.) We followed it fairly closely but for insurance and to add a bit of spice, competitive fun, we combined the preparation for Friend Day with an "Adam & Eve" contest. Who could get the most friends signed up to come on Friend Day, the men or the women? We had commitment forms for those who promised to come and when you got a form filled out with name, address and phone number you would tape the form to a wall in the church auditorium. One wall was for the women and one wall was for the men. It was a great sight to see the walls begin to be covered with forms filled out by the people who had promised to visit us on Friend Day. Each side was given so many points for each form filled out and then so many points would be given for each "friend" who actually showed up on Friend Day. The winning side would be honored by a dinner at church provided by the losing team. But really just the idea of beating the other team was reward enough to motivate everybody to do their best.
The second Friend Day was two years later (You can overdo a good thing you know.) so it seemed reasonable to set a goal of 800. Remember that Roy, Wa. only had a population of around 350 at the time. This goal of 800 would be a real challenge. We knew we had to be averaging around 400 going into Friend Day. This time we used the Adam & Eve contest again but we sweetened the pot by offering the indivduels who got the most points special prizes. We enlisted certain of our business men to make some of their goods and services available as prizes. We met our averages alright, had a lot of fun during the contest and on our second Friend Day we had 835.
Our third Friend Day was scary. Where do you go after hitting a goal of 800 plus some two years earlier? Could we possibly hit 1000? Would God allow this country church and this rather plain, not up to par preacher, live to see 1000 in attendance on it's third Friend Day? With real fear and trembling we shot for it. So many things would have to be considered. Parking space could be a real problem, if folks can't find a place to park they won't stick around. Our regular people were told that they could not park on church grounds that day. They would park in a close field and be shuttled to the church. We would provide Valet Parking for our visitors. We would need extra workers for the nursery. We rented the gym at a nearby school for the Teen Church service. We had guides available to show our visitors where to take their children. We did our best to anticipate every problem that might arise. The big day came, we did not reach our goal of 1000! But we did hit a high of 940! As I recall we had only averaged around 450 going into Friend Day so I think it is really important to be averaging at least 50%, of what you set as a goal, the previous two or three weeks before Friend Day
The by-products of having a great Friend Day, as with any other Big Day, are; it is an exciting time for the church. Every church needs it now and then, it gave us a tremendous number of prospects to work on in the succeeding weeks, it shows the church what it can do when it gets dedicated to accomplishing something, plus on the big day itself a great harvest is usually reaped considering those who are saved in Children's church, Teen Church, and in the Adult service.
Next Time we will talk about Class Promotions and Revival Promotions.