Answering Visitor Questions with Bulletins, Brochures, and Flyers

by Reba Collins and William Cowles

How many visitors walk through your church doors looking for something more to do? How many want another activity to fit into their already crammed schedules? How many more “good” causes can they support? Do they come in looking for another group to join? We’d guess, not many.

Most visitors are looking for something they can’t already get outside your church’s walls. They are looking for a vision, a mission, and a purpose for themselves and for your church. They are looking to contribute to something bigger than themselves through you, and they want to connect into a better way of life for themselves

Visitors want you to answer questions such as:

• What is the church’s purpose?
• What makes this one different from other churches?
• What is their vision for the future?
• What happens to me and others if I engage in this community?
• What’s it going to cost me to go with them on their journey?

These are big picture questions. Deep discussion questions. Questions not easily answered in 140-character Tweets or Facebook posts. And, these are important questions that can make or break a visitor’s decision to actively engage – or join – your church. 

At some point, a visitor wants a complete set of answers to their big picture questions. And doesn’t it make sense that since you have visitors more than once a year, you need to answer the big questions of vision, mission, purpose, connection, and funding more than once a year? Well, you can. Every week. Multiple times in multiple ways.

Answering these big picture questions can easily be done through your weekly bulletin, welcome center brochures and flyers, newsletter, and on-screen announcements. Here’s how:

1.       WELCOME CENTER BROCHURES and FLYERS – This is primary pick-up material for church visitors, so answer all of the questions you can in these flyers and brochures. Ministry brochures should be vision focused, mission driven, and outcome inspired. If you don’t state why and how a ministry helps fulfill the church’s vision, then visitors won’t see the point of the program. If you don’t clearly tell who benefits and what the benefits are for participating in an event or activity, then visitors won’t see value in contributing.  

2.      WORSHIP BULLETIN – Be selective. The Bulletin’s purpose is to enhance the worship experience, not to list every activity, post calendars, and beg for volunteers. It should be very clear on the day’s message and how that message relates to your church’s vision, mission, and purpose and to your visitor’s experience.  Also, Bulletins should connect the message’s call-to-action with selected ministries that help members and visitors best fulfill that call. 

3.      ON-SCREEN ANNOUNCEMENTS – A great place to reinforce basic points of culture and hospitality. If your services are casual, for example, show people dressed and behaving casually. If your communion is open, explain and reinforce it here. Also, each announcement is an opportunity to cast a little piece of your vision, mission, purpose, sacrifices, and accomplishments.  Recap ministry successes with numeric results and great photos. Consider your announcements as opportunities to shine on “Did you know that…” successes, and not just as “Here’s what’s coming up…” opportunities.

4.      NEWSLETTER – This what your regular members read, and this is where you equip them to be effective answer-givers for your vision, mission, purpose, challenges and opportunities. Capture the heart with stories and capture the head with stats. Again, every piece of “news” is another opportunity to tell about where you’re going and what your church hopes to accomplish.

The reality is that most churches already have at their disposal the communication tools they need to answer big picture questions in a timely and frequent manner.  Start by considering the basic question, “Who needs to know what?” What is it about your church’s big picture that you want visitors to read all about? Go on the record with it in every printed piece you offer and very soon, visitors, along with everyone else, will start to see the big picture.