This is part of a series of interviews with pastors of churches whose attendance has grown 20% or more in 5 years. We hope this series will be a resource of ideas to help increase worship attendance at your church.

Pastor Curtis Campbell & wife

Kitty Hawk UMC has seen a good increase in attendance in the last couple of years for a number of reasons. The primary reason has to be our priority on worship preparation, which includes much prayer and consecration of the worship space each week. Our program staff is constantly in prayer over the coming worship services. As senior pastor, sermon and worship preparation are my priorities.

Two years ago we began a new emphasis on a Monday night contemporary service that was floundering. Our worship format has been given some new emphases, such as drama and better visuals. We also do better advertising, including invitations from the pulpit on Sundays. Attendance has more than doubled at this service.

Our early service on Sunday (8:30) has also shown a strong increase in attendance. I believe the main reasons have to do with a change in focus. Instead of having a weaker version of the 11 am service, we decided to have a more liturgical, contemporary service. Communion is celebrated nearly every Sunday at this service, and although the sermon is essentially the same, the music is totally different. Instead of the organ as the primary instrument, we use piano and guitar, and use other sources of music than the UMH. ”The Faith We Sing” is an example of what we use at this service, but we don’t feel limited at all.

Other things that have contributed to the rise in attendance include regular monthly congregational emails that advertise the sermon titles and other special events. These seem to spark a lot of interest. Each Sunday we strongly welcome our visitors, reminding the congregation that they too, were once visitors. We contact all newcomers and invite them to ongoing orientation classes, which we (semi)require for membership. By not just receiving new members on a whim, we find the classes help cement their commitment, plus give new members a core of new friends, and develop relationships with the pastors.

In December, we send a very nice professionally produced large postcard to every postal customer in the surrounding area (4 zip codes) inviting them to our Christmas Eve services (3 services) and also advertise a sermon series coming in January. This has resulted in many new families visiting our church.

Another strategy we have used is to invite members to list 3 or 4 unchurched friends and neighbors. We ask them to pray for the names for several weeks. Then we invite the list of names to a special event at church. A certain number will respond. Then we repeat the process. Special events can be a concert, or drama, for example.

We thank God for the increases we have seen, and pray for continued blessings of souls for the kingdom!

In His service,

Curtis Campbell, Senior Minister – curtiscampbell3@gmail.com

Kitty Hawk UMC – http://www.kittyhawkumc.org