“Greater Things” Thursday #36: Gospel Meeting Advertising

Lebanon Road’s 2011 theme is “Greater Things.” For an introduction and video to this theme, click here. Each Thursday we are highlighting a different area in which we are striving for greater things.

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Today’s post begins a two-Thursday “run” about our upcoming Gospel Meeting. In a time when many congregations are dropping the idea of a Gospel Meeting, Lebanon Road is having her first meeting in several years! I’ll have more to say about the actual meeting next week.

For this week, I want to share with you the steps we are taking in advertising for the meeting. None of these are truly “original,” but we have really tried to focus on having several different ways to spread the word, instead of just one or two.

1. Postcards. We printed postcards from VistaPrint.com and made them available for everyone in our congregation. Here is what the front side of the cards look like:

2. Flyers/Pamphlets. Many congregations make a few flyers and mail them to nearby congregations. We are doing that, but we are also making dozens of these available to our members, too. We took the step of having a local copy shop run these off, so the paper quality is a bit higher. Click here to see what they look like.

3. Facebook. We created a Facebook event page for the Gospel Meeting, both to let our members show their support, and to give them an organized “digital” way to invite friends. Here is the link.

4. House to House. We mail this newsletter to nearby neighborhoods, and we included an ad in the one that will go out this week. (In fact, as I finish this article, a great group of volunteers is finishing up getting them ready to mail.)

5. PowerPoint. We have made a PowerPoint slide that will run in the announcements before our services.

6. Bulletin. Our bulletin has contained information about our meeting for several weeks. For the past 3 weeks, the back page has been an “ad” for our meeting, and I have included reminders about it for around 6 weeks on the front page.

7. Local newspaper. We purchased a 1/4-page ad in the Donelson newspaper that will run the final two weeks before the meeting.

8. Word of mouth. Our best advertising of all is simply people “talking up” the meeting!

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For “greater things” to occur, we just need our Lebanon Road folks to continue spreading the word and passing out postcards and flyers. Get the word out! It’s going to be a great meeting, and I’ll have more information about it on here next Thursday.