What About Pastors?

You might wonder why I’m not advising you to go the route of simply contacting pastors in order to get your message into churches.  It seems to be the obvious and logical place to start.  Like many things in life, unfortunately, the easy and obvious way is not the best way.


Why not?  Two main reasons:

• Pastors are busy people with many demands on their time.  They don’t need one more thing placed on their plate.
• Pastors can be a little turf-y, and this is understandable given the nature of their job.  They don’t really appreciate someone from outside the church coming in with an agenda and telling them what to do.  They have their own programs and projects.  They also feel an obligation to protect their congregation from potentially “odd” ideas.

But, understand this … pastors are the key!

• Pastors have an enormous sphere of influence.
• First, they will have the ability to “yea or nay” your plan in their own churches.  They have tremendous influence over their congregation, without him on your side, well, your program just won’t gain traction in the church.
• Second -- a pastor’s peer group is other pastors.  If you can win over one pastor, chances are very good that you’ll be able to reach others through his influence.
• And third – this is especially true for well-respected pastors of large churches --this influence can even extend to politicians and other elected officials.  Winning pastors over to backing your idea is fundamental.

The way to reach the pastor is through one of his church members.  Someone who is a faithful, trusted, and respected congregant can present your idea to the pastor in a non-threatening way.  This is someone who says, in effect, to the pastor:


“This is a concern, something our church can make a difference in, and I’m willing to come along beside you to help you. I’m not demanding that things be done just in one way.  I’ll present a ‘menu’ of ideas, totally for your approval.   You pick and choose where you’d like to start and I’ll implement.”


This attitude of being a helper puts the pastor immediately at ease.  He can look over the ideas a church member presents to him and not feel that a stranger (that he has no allegiance to) has barged into his office with unrealistic demands.


You need to create a plan – basically a marketing plan – to first win over pastors and through their support (active or passive), their church members.

Who is this blog intended for?

WHO WILL FIND HELP HERE?
Before I go much further, let me address the question of who this information is intended for.
I think this discussion could benefit anyone looking to recruit volunteers, raise funds, or raise awareness about just about any issue.  “Moral concerns” type issues are a natural fit for churches, i.e. right-to-life, Christian Coalition, pregnancy resource centers, homeless, and feed the hungry, abuse, addiction, etc. Within certain boundaries (mostly set by the IRS), even political/civic groups (Tea Party type groups) can work with churches.

***NOTE:  I'm not a lawyer or an accountant.  Church leadership and pastors have an understandable obligation to protect their church's non-profit standing with the IRS.  Also, IRS guidelines are constantly shifting and sometimes affected by court cases.  The page listed as "What Churches and Pastors Can and Cannot Do Politically" gives current (as of Jan. 2010) guidelines as understood by the legal minds at the National Right to Life Committee.  They've been around, doing this kind of thing longer than anyone else I can think of.  Their guidelines tend to err on the side of caution, which is a good thing, I think.

Anyone who wants to reach a religious-based audience with their message will find helpful, practical tips and ideas here. And I don’t think you need a huge organization behind you to do this.  Sure it helps to have a pre-existing organization, like being a chapter or affiliate of a state or national group. But if you’re an individual with an idea – especially a very “local” idea – you could take these ideas to reach churches and run with your idea, pretty much on your own.


Example:  My special-needs granddaughter lives with me.  I’m in contact, mostly through the internet, with other parents of medically fragile children.  I know from talking to them that it’s a struggle to get things done around the house, especially gardening and little things that would really improve the quality of their lives while they’re at home with critically-ill children.  How neat would it be for a group of volunteers to pick a family, buy some perennial flowers and go make a little garden for the family to enjoy?  That’s not a huge thing, nor would it be difficult to accomplish, but it would mean a lot to the mom of a sick child -- something beautiful and restful to look at every day.   I can tell you, it would be a great thing to do.  One person with a vision for helping these families could reach into churches, find volunteers, raise a little money, and do this.
That’s what I’m talking about.

Making a difference.  Whether it’s you, by yourself, seeing a need (big or small) that needs to be addressed or whether you’re part of a national group with thousands of members – the church should be a place where people *start* things.

There are effective and efficient ways to reach church members and find those volunteers and funds.

First Things First

If you're making a plan to get churches to care about your cause (i.e. to recruit volunteers, raise awareness and/or funds), there's some homework you need to do at the outset.  The first two are:

1. How many churches are in my area?
2. Is there an efficient way to reach these churches?

#1 -- How many churches?
You can get information about the churches in your county or city from several sources.

• Start, of course with the internet.  Go to www.churchangel.com.  Click on as many cities as you’re interested in.
• You can also Google “churches in _________” (your city or county).
• Another place to look is in your local Chamber of Commerce’s website.  Often they will list newcomer’s information and will include a list of churches.
• Finally, local (community) newspapers may have a list of churches.

None of these lists are likely to be comprehensive (churches are always coming and going!), so it’s good to investigate as much as you can.  This gives you at least a ballpark idea of the work ahead of you – are there 30 churches in the area or 300?


#2 -- Is there an efficient way to reach these churches?

If you’re in a metropolitan area, like I was, and are faced with the possibility of wanting to reach 100’s of churches, well, it’s just a bit daunting!  Even in more rural areas with maybe a few dozen churches, you want to work smart, not hard.  Why waste your valuable time doing things that don’t produce the outcome you’re hoping for?

Yes, there is an efficient way to reach churches, even 100’s of churches.  But ... you need to think through these questions:

• What is the structure or hierarchy of the church?  Who has the authority to help me?
• Who is the key person in the church?  How do I reach that person?
• What do churches (and by that I mean of course church members, potential volunteers) need from my organization?  Do they need information, education, and/or tools to help them get involved?

Whew!  Now you’re perhaps beginning to see the difficulty … there is no right answer to these questions for every church in your area.  Within denominations there will be similarities.  But Catholic and Protestant … even Baptist and Charismatic … they can be as different as night and day.


I quickly realized I needed a “mole”, an “insider” to feed me information about each church.  I couldn’t gather the information I needed and tailor a program to fit each church. But if I could recruit someone from inside the church -- a church member -- then I had a place to begin.

How Do I Get Churches Involved in my Cause?

Have you ever set in church and looked around you and wondered ... "How do I get my church members to care about ...?" I have. I've been flustered by the lack of information and concern by Christians about moral and civic issues. Whether it's homelessness, poverty, addiction, abuse, or right-to-life issues (or any number of pressing concerns), the Church could be a powerful force for positive change if church members could be informed and activated.

Twenty years ago, I was a new volunteer in our local Right to Life chapter. Our chapter was getting nowhere fast. No volunteers + no presence in the community = no impact for our cause. I knew that church members, if we could only reach them, were our target audience. I had to come up with a plan.

I tried cold-calling churches. Didn’t work. In larger churches I talked to church secretaries (gatekeepers) who didn’t know me and had no reason to “open the gate” for me to the pastor. In smaller churches I left messages on answering machines, and rarely got a call-back.
I tried mailing information to churches. Didn’t work. I never knew if the information got to the pastor or any other appropriate staff-person or if it was ever used (or useful!).

After a couple of fruitless months, I figured out what didn’t work. And I began to develop ideas of what it would take to reach churches in an efficient and effective way.

I eventually developed a program (in 1989) that I called “Church Liaisons”. Over the next few months I refined the plan. At one point I had about 120 Church Liaisons working with me in our county. Needless to say, we were a powerful force in our county! After about a year, other chapters were asking me to help them set up Church Liaison programs in their area. I spoke at conventions and eventually put together a how-to notebook called Organized for Life.

The Church Liaison program is a link from your organization to church members. It can create a powerful and effective engine to activate churches for your cause. Keep reading along with me and I’ll share the tips and techniques I used.

I’m also eager to hear your stories – roadblocks, solutions, ideas – about reaching churches for your cause.