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.