National Back to Church Sunday is a special day set aside each year on the second Sunday of September (September 12th in 2010) when thousands of Bible-believing Christian churches encourage their members to invite their friends, family and neighbors back to church. Research shows that 82% of unchurched people are open to attending a church if invited by a friend, and yet only 2% of churchgoers invited someone to church in the past year. Back to Church Sunday provides the perfect opportunity for people everywhere to rediscover church and for those in church to take the opportunity to invite them.

The campaign is based on a simple idea: if you ask un-churched people to come with you to church, most likely they'll say yes. Statistics show that most people who don’t or no longer attend church simply haven’t made time for it—as Mark Batterson puts it, "Many de-churched people are a simple re-invitation away!"

Prepare for an Effective Back to Church Sunday Event

Step 1: Purchase the Back to Church Campaign Kit.

Get the tools you need to plan a successful event easily! The Back To Church Sunday Campaign Kit contains everything you need including:

• Campaign Planning Guide with helpful leadership information and tips.
• Resource CD with sermons, web resources, PowerPoint templates and more…
• DVD with promotional video.
• 5 reDiscover Church Outreach booklets
• 5 posters, and more…

Step 2: Pick a date, list your church and join the e-newsletter!

• Most churches will participate on September 12, 2010 to get maximum media exposure, but you can do it any time of year and in conjunction with any message or series. Consider joining with other churches to do a city-wide event.
• List your church in the National Roster of Participating Churches – It's Free – and it's a great way to help visitors find your church. PLUS Local and national media outlets may reference the roster to report on participation – so you could also increase your media exposure! Click here to add your church!
• Sign up to receive the weekly Back to Church Sunday Enewsletter and get ideas, tools and links before the national event.

Step 3: Build excitement in your church.

Get your members excited about your special event and inviting their friends by starting your internal promotion early. Show your congregation the promo video included in the kit and encourage them to begin praying about the people God may want them to invite. Also, put up Back to Church Sunday banners in your church to build excitement.

Step 4: Equip your members to reach out.

A recent study by the North American Mission Board and LifeWay Research found that 67 percent of Americans say a personal invitation from a family member would be effective in getting them to visit a church. So, equip your members with tools to help them invite their friends.

• Order the reDiscover Church booklet and have them custom printed with your church information or have your members add a personal note on the back and hand them out to their friends and family members!
  
  Click here to preview the book. This powerful tool now comes in four covers.

  reDiscover Church Outreach booklets are great for:

  - Empowering Members to invite their friends to church

  - Neighborhood invitation campaigns- insert in an DoorHanger Bag and leave at every house

  - Using as a visitor gifts on the day of Back to Church Sunday.

• Use the free e-vite feature on this website to invite friends to your local Back to Church Sunday service! And put a widget on your website or blog to let the members of your church use this tool directly from your site to invite anyone to your local Back to Church event.
• Also, give each church member a few business-card sized invitations that they can carry in their wallet or purse to easily hand to people they would like invite to church.

Step 5: Invite your community to attend

"73% of people who don't attend church were never invited." –Barna Group

Let your community know that everyone is invited – and reinforce the message with multiple impressions!

• Send a direct mail invitation to every home in your community! A postcard is still the easiest way and most affordable way to invite every family in your community back to church. Choose a design that matches other promotional tools like your ReDiscover Church booklets or outdoor banners so recipients will make the connection.
• Hang Back to Church Posters in local businesses like the gym or grocery store – write your event date and service times in the space provided.

• Get members involved by asking your small groups, youth group or Sunday School classes to deliver DoorHangers to their neighbors. This fosters fellowship between believers and increases the excitement as they invite the community to visit the church.
• Use Facebook and create an event for Back to Church Sunday and ask church members to invite their friends virtually.
• Use widgets and banner ads, and countdown clocks from the Resource CD to decorate your webpages, enewsletters and blogs.
• Send out a press release. Use the press release template included in the Back to Church Sunday Campaign Kit and send the release to the local media to get free exposure your event. Join the enewsletter today to receive updates and links to a free press release that your church can customize for Back to Church Sunday.

• Post Back to Church outdoor banners in front of your church to invite passing traffic to attend and to show visitors they are in the right place on the big day! (Shown in the picture - A-Frame Banner stands are available for easy mounting of your banner.)

Step 6: Plan for your special day.

Make sure your church is ready to receive guests on the day of the event. Purchase visitor gifts to hand out – the reDiscover Church Booklets , or other books are great inexpensive items that can leave a lasting impression.

Prepare a special sermon for Back to Church Sunday. The Campaign Kit includes two full sermons. Or, take advantage of the sermon resource page from SermonCentral.com with sermon outlines, illustrations, videos, PowerPoint templates and more!

Then follow the preparation tips in your planning guide to make sure your facility and ministry teams are ready too! Take a walk around your building with fresh eyes and look for things that are easy to fix but might keep visitors from feeling at home.

Finally, and most importantly pray for your new visitors and watch what God will do when your members invite their friends and family Back to Church.

Planning Timeline for Back to Church Sunday:

• August: Pray for your event! Review the Campaign Planning Guide. Distribute information to ushers, children’s ministry, janitors and staff. Take a walk around the building and look at your area to see what improvements can be made before Back to Church Sunday. Start preparing your sermon and children’s church message for the day. Order supplies for your campaign.
• Fourth week of August: Pray. Print invitations, put up indoor banners. Decorate your website with Back to Church graphics from the Resource CD. Put up Outdoor banners to alert the neighborhood that you are having a special service. Send out a local press release that matches the National media to drive the media to your church. (Join the Back to Church Sunday Enewsletter to receive this content when available). Use Facebook or Google – create an event or advertisement for your Sunday. Show your congregation the Back to Church Sunday video.
• First week of September: Pray. Send out small groups to neighborhoods with DoorHangers, Invite Cards, and/or reDiscover Church booklets to personally invite people to church. Use the free new e-vite feature on the National Back to Church website to invite friends to your local back to Church Sunday service! And put a widget on your website or blog to let the members of your church use this tool directly to invite anyone to your local back to church event. Also, send your local press release (with new date) to the media again at the first of this week.
• Happy Back to Church Sunday! Our prayer for each church who is participating is that as people come in to your doors they would encounter Jesus. We'd love to hear how your service went. Share your story on Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/backtochurch