MINNESOTA BAPTIST ASSOCIATION

Plant Now!

by Dave Barba of Press On! Ministries

You Can Start a Church

My family and I traveled in full-time evangelism across the USA from 1986-1995. In January, 1995, we left revival work and moved to Franklin, TN, to start a church.

To plant the church, we had to get the word out. People needed to know who we were, what our church would be like, where we would meet, what kind of music we would have, and how much we would charge for healing. There are many ways to do this—such as door knocking, literature distribution, newspaper and yellow-page advertising, word of mouth testimonies, radio announcements, flyers on car windshields, a website, or a $1.2 million 30-second Super Bow1 commercial. We used most of these methods. But our most effective tool to publicize the new church was the telephone.

"The Phone's for You" is a church start-up tool that helps to publicize a new church. Written by Norm Whan (www.canninghunger.org) it has been used to start over 20,000 churches in North America. Norm has taught the program to over 25,000 pastors on six continents and in 52 countries. Estimates say that every Sunday there are over one million people in church because of "The Phone's for You."

This program does not use an electronic calling machine. Live volunteers make thousands of calls in one month from a central calling room. The phone numbers axe found in the criss-cross (also called reverse) directory. Available in hard copy or CD ROM, it costs $250 and up, depending on the number of listings in your calling area.

In Tennessee, we installed seven telephone lines in our rented mobile home. My family and others met each day for 30 days to make calls. We called for one purpose—to find unchurched people who would let us send them mail about the new church.

We made 23,000 calls in February. About 1200 folks (households) give us permission to send mail. We immediately sent each one a letter thanking them for taking our call. In March we sent four mailings to each home, telling about the church, inviting them to the first service. On Sunday, April 9, 120 attended our first service! At least 80 of those came because of the phone calling. Souls were saved at the first service, during the following week, and the next Sunday. Of course not everyone came back. However, we never dropped below 40 on a Sunday morning. The church grew. Within six years, we paid cash for land and built a lovely church building (complete with mortgage).

An added blessing of the phones program was the list of folks who did not come to the first service. They became our visitation list for the first year. When we knocked on their doors and mentioned the name of the church, they recognized us. After all, we had already "touched" them with two phone calls and five pieces of mail. (It's called "The Law of Seven Touches.")