Whom does your Church want to reach?  This is not a theological question.  Most churches want to reach everyone with the gospel, and do not want to exclude anyone. 

  Is your church Sunday school age graded?  If so, you’ve organized your ministry by target groups.  When you distribute flyers for Vacation Bible School, do you go to neighborhoods with kids, or to nursing homes?  Targeting an audience is a common practice for churches.

 Target evangelism is not an attempt to exclude anyone, but it is a realization of the economic realities churches face.  Most churches do not have the resources to provide programs for every sociographic or generational group.  If you can afford to minister to everyone, than do so.  If you are working with a budget then you must decide whom you will target with your message.

SOCIOGRAPHIC TARGETING

 Percept, (800-442-6277) can help a church define the sociographic groups in their ministry area.  Using Census Bureau information, they provide a complete demographic breakdown of the area which includes:

• age
• income
• population change
• race
• and “U.S. Lifestyles Segments.”

• church programs
• faith
• worship styles
• music style
• and advertising methods.

 Charles Handren is the future pastor of the “Newest Church in Marin,” a mission of the Hillside Church of Marin, California.   His church is so new that it doesn’t even have a name yet, but it does have a clear picture of its future ministry field.  Charlie is glad they  purchased Percepts’ “Map” and “Compass.”   “Percept provided the Newest Church in Marin with the raw material that we needed to discover who is in our community, where various people groups live and what programs will likely attract them to our church.”

 Dan Lewis of Harvest Community Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, used some high tech resources to learn about his ministry field too.  He started his GenXer church on February 1, 1998 and is already averaging 140 in worship.  Though he gained some insight from the demographic materials he purchased, he believes it is no replacement for getting to know the people by knocking on their doors and personally living in the target area.  Instead of  mailing his advertisement to a specific target group, he found it more cost efficient to do a saturation mailing, and designing his mailers for his GenXer target.

GENERATIONAL TARGETING
 One key to understanding the people in a church’s ministry field is to see them as a member of a unique generation.  The generation that lived through the depression is different from the one that came of age during the Vietnam conflict.  Publishing houses are producing some resources to help a church get a handle on generational issues.

Bridgers
 Thom Rainer, dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Church Growth at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, coined the phrase “Bridgers” in his book, The Bridger Generation  (Links will take you to Amazon to find out more about the books mentioned.) to describe the post “X” generation.  They are the “bridge” into the twenty-first Century. 

 A high percentage of this age group already attends church, but a low percentage of them are making commitments to Christ.  Rainer believes that churches need to have children and youth evangelism emphasis, not just youth programs.   Beyond identifying the tendencies of this generation, he shows characteristics of “bridger friendly” churches.

 Busters
 Geno Robinson believes the key to understanding GenXers is to examine their life development issues not to make assumptions about individuals based upon trends of a generational group.  In his book, Intersecting Lives: Road Maps for Ministry with Young Adults (Willow City Press, 559-229-9533, ext. 233 or 234) Robinson explores the challenges and opportunities of ministry with today’s young adults.  Using case studies, he shows churches who reach and develop young adults with:

• big events
• challenging discipleship courses
• small groups
• and choirs.

Builders
 Jim Hughes works with the Senior Adult Ministry at the Skillman Church of Christ (214-553-0790 ) in Dallas Texas.  His resource, How to Build a Senior Adult Ministry in a Church Environment, grew out of his Ph.D. studies in Educational Gerontology.  His program leads a church to minister with Senior Adults, not to them.  The Seniors mentor younger people and participate in direct ministry projects.  His notebook includes “how-to” information, a cassette seminar, a computer program to track the ministry to seniors, and case studies that show churches reaching seniors with:

• peer friendship evangelism
• senior adult revivals
• newcomer visitation
• and folding church visitors into church programs.

 In metropolitan areas, two types of churches emerge.  The neighborhood church ministers to the people within a radius of their church.  They draw their membership from this homogeneous  group and minister in their community.  The regional church draws its membership from all over the city.  Should a regional church target its neighborhood as its ministry field if the membership does not come from the neighborhood? 

 One strategy to reach a target group is to mobilize the church membership to reach their neighbors, not the church neighborhood.   Since the “lifestyle segments” tend to cluster in neighborhoods, it is reasonable to assume that people like a church’s members live in their neighborhoods.  The Mapping Center for Evangelism (888-627-7997) provides “Harvest Tools” on a CD  that allows a church to redefine their church ministry field as a geographic area around their members’ homes, not a radius around their church building.   Each state’s CD contains the names, address and phone numbers of the people with listed telephone numbers.  With it, the user can:

• print neighborhood prayer lists for the members of their church
• compile a cluster analysis that shows where their members live
• and print demographic reports for neighborhoods.

Collect Food for the Hungry
 Canning Hunger (714-990-9551) is a strategy to cultivate relationships within a neighborhood by collecting canned foods for a hunger drive.  This program:

• helps feed the hungry
• gives Christians a reason to knock on their neighbor’s door
• and builds relationships.

Share the Gospel 
 Since most relationships are reciprocal, it is natural for the neighbor to accept a gift from the church that they previously helped.  The Jesus Video  (800-29-JESUS) is a dramatic retelling of the Gospel of Luke that is a nonthreatening way to present the gospel.

 In March 1996, Campus Crusade for Christ hired Lawrence & Schiller, an independent marketing firm, to find out how effective their distribution of the JESUS VIDEO was in Syracuse.  They discovered that 96.2% of those that viewed the video encouraged Campus Crusade for Christ to “Keep doing it.  It’s worth the effort.”

 The marketing firm also discovered that:

• 67% of those who received a video watched it.  Each household that watched it accounted for 3.65 people
• 43%  of those who watched the video prayed the prayer at the end
• 75%  of those who prayed say it has changed their life
• 26%  started attending a church.

• builds positive relationships
• increases the visibility of the church’s prayer ministry
• places a priority of talking to God about a person before talking to a person about God
• involves the community in solving the hunger problem
• and presents the gospel in a nonthreatening way.

 She arrived early, helped herself to a donut and some coffee.  She participated in the discussion and did her best to make herself at home.  No one spoke to her.

 The next week, Timothy explained to the class who the young lady was and reported to them her impressions of the class.  They were stunned that none of the members of their loving class reached out to her.  Though this class remains fairly homogeneous, later, they did assimilate a person who closely resembled the lady who previously visited them.  They continue to have a target group, but have learned to minister to whomever the Lord gives them, and by doing so, hit the “bull’s eye.”