Word Count: 852 – Est Reading Time: 3 minutes
What’s Up:
Most pastors are convinced their church is known and appreciated in the community. Most of them are wrong. The fact is, the church is your community’s best-kept secret.
So What:
A church nobody’s talking about isn’t growing. Reputation isn’t built by doing good work inside your walls. It’s built by being remarkable outside them, and then making sure people know it.
The Point Is:
Your community probably doesn’t know you exist. Ask your members what your church is known for and you’ll get a list. Great music. Wonderful children’s program. Fantastic choir. Terrific youth group. And maybe those things really are great. But they’re great to the people already sitting in your pews, and possibly to a handful of folks in other churches nearby. The people you’re actually trying to reach? They’ve never heard of you. Step one in building a reputation is finding out what reputation you actually have with people outside your building.
Mediocrity doesn’t travel. Most churches try to do a little of everything. Kids’ ministry, worship, community outreach, small groups, counseling, food pantry. That’s not a strategy. That’s a buffet. And a church that’s “pretty good” at a lot of things is unremarkable at all of them. Unremarkable churches don’t generate comments. Churches that don’t generate comments stay in obscurity. The churches that earn a reputation in the community are the ones that do one thing better than anybody else in town.
Once you know what you’ll excel at, actually excel at it. Deciding what you’re going to be known for is just the beginning. Then you build it. You refine it. You pour resources into it until it genuinely stands out. Not “pretty good for a church.” Outstanding. Full stop.
Remarkable doesn’t spread itself … at least not quickly. You can’t just build something great and wait for word to get out. The pastor has to be the face of the church in the community, personally taking the story to the influencers and networkers who shape local conversation. Influencers amplify your message to broad audiences. Networkers connect you to specific people and organizations who multiply your reach in different directions. Both matter, and they’re not the same thing. Your members need to follow your lead on this, and they will … eventually. But they won’t go first. You have to model it before they’ll mirror it. And don’t neglect social media. According to YouGov, 88% of American adults accessed a social network in the last 24 hours. The people you’re trying to reach are already there. The question is whether your church shows up when they go looking.
And … ?
I was consulting with a church in Illinois that had built something genuinely remarkable. A food pantry. A clothing pantry. A furniture pantry. A full-time social worker who cut through red tape and connected desperate families to real resources. When someone qualified and did the work, that church could write a check for back rent or overdue utilities. Real money. Real help. Real impact.
Before the Sunday service, I left my name badge in the hotel room and drove to the Hardee’s catty-corner across the street. You could see the church clearly through the window. It took up an entire city block. I ordered biscuits and gravy and asked the teenager taking my order what he knew about that church. He looked at the church and at me with a blank stare … he knew nothing. But then he leaned over the counter and told me I should go to the Church on the Hill instead. Great music. Great preacher. That’s where everyone goes. He’d never been himself. He’d just heard good things.
The manager didn’t even know the church across the street was still open. The cook mentioned the facade had been sandblasted a couple years back, then told me to try the Church on the Hill too. His girlfriend went there. Once. By the time I left, I’d collected four separate recommendations for a church most of them had barely set foot in, and zero awareness of the food pantry, the clothing pantry, the furniture ministry, the social worker, or the families who kept their lights on because that church wrote a check. All that remarkable work and the church responsible for it …a complete secret.
Action!
Start with an honest assessment. Leave the clergy collar at home, walk into a coffee shop or diner near your building, and ask a stranger what they know about your church. What you hear back is your real reputation, not the one you’ve worked hard to build inside your walls. From there you’ll know exactly where you stand: building from scratch, building on a foundation that’s already solid, or rebuilding a reputation you wish you didn’t have. Any of those is workable. Ignorance isn’t. Once you know where you actually stand, you can start taking real steps to build the kind of reputation that spreads.
If you’re ready to dig into exactly how to do that, register for this week’s free Catalytic Conversation webinar: From Unknown to Unforgettable: Becoming a Remarkable Church.