Get to know your target audience. Discover as much as you can about the people in your community. Study demographic data about local residents to find lifestyle patterns and trends. Spend time with people in your area regularly, observing them in public places and building friendships with a variety of people who live around you but don’t attend church. Get to know their needs, hopes, joys, and struggles. Engage with them in their element, around what’s important to them (not just what’s important to you).  Learn how to speak their language so you can make your church relevant to them and connect both personally and spiritually to them. Then, consider the crowd your church is currently reaching: Does it reflect your community?  Think about which lifestyle categories of people your church is most adept at reaching.

Make visitors feel welcome. Communicate to visitors that you’re well prepared for them. Make your Website easy to use, state your service times on your sign, and clearly indicate where various places are inside your church (such as where visitors should drop off their children). Design the service so that it’s inviting and not intimidating to the unchurched. Try to make visitors feel as if they fit in. Let them know what to expect from the experience. Design your message and choose songs to be relevant and powerful for people at all spiritual levels. Teach like Jesus taught, through practical illustrations aimed to help people understand the message. Be sensitive to those who may not understand certain spiritual concepts; explain everything thoroughly.

Motivate members to invite friends. Remember that most visitors will come to your church at the invitation of your members. Understand that your current members are walking billboards for your church in the community; if they live out their faith well and speak positively about your church, people will be drawn to visit. Encourage your members to openly and regularly share their concerns about your church, and work to resolve problems so they’ll feel comfortable inviting people to visit.