Religious Printing: 5 Steps to Grow Your Congregation with Valuable Content

Religious Printing: 5 Steps to Grow Your Congregation with Valuable Content

Religious groups have been utilizing religious printing to grow congregation numbers since Johann Gutenberg’s newly designed printing press rolled off its first book, the Christian Bible. Since then, printed messages of all sorts have been instrumental in bringing information to congregations, connecting with potential members, and communicating with their community. Today, churches can grow their congregations and strengthen the bonds with current members through a planned religious printing strategy that works for churches of all sizes.

1. Get To Know Your Church for Religious Printing

The first step in growing your congregation through religious printing is to develop a deeper understanding of who makes up your flock. Asking a few pointed questions can help you get to know who is sitting in the pews and attending services and activities, making it much easier to create effective communication tools in the future.

What are the demographics of your membership? Your congregation might skew more toward young families with children in tow and parents seeking educational opportunities within the church for their growing families. Other churches are comprised of aging populations, with more congregants near retirement age who are looking for activities and social opportunities within the church with others who may not have their extended families in the area.

Many churches are a blend of those two extremes, but understanding the gender, age and marital status of your membership can help you begin to understand how best to communicate with your members through religious printing.

What kind of activities do your members attend and enjoy? Knowing where your members spend their time with their church family as well as outside of the congregation’s activities will help you not only reach them within the church but also create pathways to develop activities they would like.

2. Consider Your Potential Members for Religious Printing

Knowing who your potential members are is the next step in growing your congregation through religious printing practices. Just like understanding who is sitting in the pews now, learning about who is likely to walk into the church or a church activity can help you discover the best way to reach them.

How do their demographics differ from your current membership? If a church is in a walkable area like a city center, potential members might be strolling by the building on their way to work or going about their daily lives, so the demographic for this type of potential member might include single working adults or young families who live in affordable housing.

Churches located near a university might mostly see college-age visitors while suburban congregations might experience high visitor numbers that are brought in by youth group members or families that move to a desirable location outside of the city center. Anticipating what type of guest might walk through the doors will help your congregation connect with them on a meaningful level.

What do they value? Since families with young children and single adults might be looking for something different in a congregation outside of the core beliefs of the faith, knowing who a potential member is will help you reach them where they are with the language they understand.

3. Determine Your Church’s Appeal

The last step before developing a religious print strategy is to seek to understand what sets your church congregation apart from others. Why do visitors come to your church? It might be the strong choral group at every service or your excellent childcare programming.

Some churches are well known for a large youth group program while others are appealing for young adults or singles in the area. Whatever it is that draws visitors through your doors and keeps members actively participating in the church, its appeal is something that your congregation can use in your religious printing strategy to bring more souls to the faith.

4. Create a Communication Strategy for Religious Printing

To grow congregation size and strength, church leaders need to create an effective religious printing communication strategy that allows the church to connect with those who may consider becoming members of the congregation. Consider what success looks like for your church to create the strategy.

• Do you want to grow your youth group? Your communication strategy might include printed posters to hang up at local teen hangouts as well as flyers advertising fun youth group activities that your congregation is hosting.
• Do you want to increase the number of retirees in your congregation? Consider printing booklets that show pictures of the active senior adult ministry activities already in motion at your church for potential members to see. A postcard invitation to attend services is a good way to canvass a geographic area with a large senior population and is a good addition to your communication strategy for this demographic.
• Would a larger children’s ministry be considered successful church growth? Reach parents of little ones by crafting beautiful brochures featuring your congregation’s childcare facilities, dynamic educational programs, meaningful classes, or group activities for both parents and children.
• Would a larger mission-minded membership be a sign of growth? Consider creating flyers to distribute to guests who ask about mission work that your congregation is involved in or design banners or posters to display at a mission-focused space in your church building or at a community event that potential members may attend.

5. Design and Print the Needed Tools

When you have identified a religious printing strategy with the potential to bring in new members seeking to learn more about your church family, religious printing is the next step.

First, obtain the appropriate approvals needed to move forward from leadership teams, clergy or others who make decisions about the church. Then, collaborate with any leaders or organizers within the church who will be involved with activities you may be promoting such as youth group leaders, worship leaders, choir or music directors or preschool program directors.

To create the most effective religious printing project, follow a few basic steps to develop a gorgeous print product that will attract potential members to your congregation so you can grow your flock.

• Use a template to help you organize your content.
• Solicit photographs from members (but be sure to get approval from anyone whose picture may be included in print form.) Be sure to request high-quality photographs with at least 300 dpi so pictures will turn out crisp and clear on your project.
• Keep fonts simple and easy to read and use colors sparingly for impact.
• Consider including your church’s brand colors and font on your project for a consistent look.
• Don’t forget to include fun graphics and bold designs to catch the attention of potential members.
• Keep your target audience in mind and use color palettes, graphics, and photos that appeal directly to them.
• Engage the services of a professional graphic designer to help you create an attractive design. You might consider asking your church membership if anyone would be willing to donate their professional design services or work for a reduced fee to assist the church in their growth efforts.
• Be sure to have multiple people review the final draft for word choice, spelling, placement, and content so potential members won’t be distracted by an overlooked error.
• Partner with a trusted printer like Publishing Xpress to turn your concept into a gorgeous final product that will demonstrate your church’s appeal to potential members.