Congregation is a group of people. When you talk about building a congregation for the church. It refers to getting people to walk into the church and becoming regular members. People will become regular members based on the content of your sermons. This depends on the clergy so this answer cannot guide you on what speeches to deliver. But it will definitely help you get people into the church to get started with. This answer will cover the technical aspects of building a congregation not the theological part.
1. Rent a shop or a house to get the church started. A shop will be much better than a house because neighbors might feel uncomfortable with strangers and outsiders visiting their residential buildings. A shop is accessible to everybody hence its better to start with a shop.
2. Try to get a big billboard above your shop with the name of your church, contact information, prayer timings, mission and focus topics. A big bell is important too because most churches from almost all denominations use it to call the faithful to prayers. This will make people living in the adjacent areas aware of the existence of a new church.
3. Once the people start coming in you need to make sure they remain consistent and enthusiastic about visiting the church on every Sunday. They should have good attendance as well as punctuality. In order to maintain this discipline it's important to offer a bus service to the congregation members. The bus will remove all emotional and physical hurdles people might experience on a Sunday when visiting the church. This can be in many shapes and forms for example they are feeling too lazy to get out of bed on a Sunday morning and just want to take the entire day off, OR their personal transport might have broken down or needs refueling and a tonne of other reasons. In order to make it simple for members to visit the church a bus is a must have.
4. When a bus is purchased, make good use by drawing routes throughout the neighborhood. This might not make sense initially but it's important because the bus can be wrapped with the church's information making it a mobile billboard. When you drive it regularly through every street in the neighborhood, people will automatically get acquainted with the church, thus bringing in members from every street in the neighborhood. Even if the bus runs empty today, it will bring in members from the route it undertakes tomorrow. Never underestimate the power of a bus service.
5. If your bus is running empty on a particular route, then get your staff on board and interact with the local people on that route. For example, if the route has a school, then distribute goodies to the children, set up a community kitchen, organize a cultural event, distribute pamphlets, organize a movie or a TV program for the public - this will be a sure shot success because humans have a weakness for television and drama.
Owning a bus is a path to success for any church. Even struggling churches will revive its attendance if they can arrange a bus service. There are buses available on rent but this can be super expensive for a church which does not have a big congregation. For example, the hourly rate of hiring a minibus is $120 to $150 and hiring them for the entire day can cost $1200 to $1700. Can a startup church do this on every Sunday for 50+ Sundays in a year. The answer is a plain NO, its a huge expenditure and makes no financial sense. The easiest way is to buy a used bus for sale. Buying pre owned buses is profitable because they are 60% cheaper than a brand new bus.
If you can start a church and own a bus at the same time, then people will walk in sooner than expected thus increasing the overall size of the congregation. But used buses have defects just like any other used vehicle and need repairs. There are used bus dealerships selling used buses that are fully reconditioned from bumper to bumper and free of any defects. These vehicles may cost 15% extra than those being sold as is but are the better choice in the long run and will not need frequent repairing and fixing. Church owners should remember that a cheap bus is not the one you buy cheap, but it's the one that will not need frequent repairing in the long run. Buses require a higher degree of maintenance than other vehicles because there are so many people traveling together and walking in and out on a regular basis. In order to keep the maintenance cost low, it's advisable to buy a bus that is fully reconditioned with more than 300 body parts inspected, repaired or even replaced if needed.
A short Google search will easily help you locate a used bus dealership nearby. However, dealerships are not located everywhere, there are chances you may not have any dealerships in your state. This will require you to buy from dealerships that are located outside the state and the used bus for sale will have to be delivered to your site. The real condition of the bus depends on the type of seller. One time sellers will disappear after the transaction is over. However, bus ownership is a process from buying, owning, operating and finally disposal. You need to have a bus expert backing you up always for better advice. Relationship with a used bus dealership will go a long way throughout the ownership process.
Major Vehicle Exchange is one such dealership that has been selling premium quality used shuttle buses for sale to clients across the North American continent for more than 3 decades. We are based in Westbury, New York and have sold our vehicle as far as the state of Texas in the USA. All our buses are certified ready to hit the road by DOT certified technicians and we offer 3rd party inspection services too to ensure buyer satisfaction before making the final purchasing decision.
Majority of our customers are pastors and bishops from startup churches that have a limited budget for buying a bus. We recondition our vehicles in a manner that they are affordable to any church with any budget size. We also have 3rd party financiers who will finance the purchase of the vehicle at attractive interest rates. However, we always advise our church friends to ask for donations from their congregation members rather than making an outright purchase on credit. This strategy will help them save thousands of US dollars in interest charges annually.
https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-build-a-church-congregation/answer/Charles-Kaufman-8
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