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Most preachers know that there is a certain value in advertising their church in a
community newspaper. Like all advertising, that church ad is supposed to bring in,
well, "customers." New people.

At the same time, it is not easy for many churches to justify the cost of a weekly ad
on the Saturday church page, a cost that can easily run $50 to $100 a week--$250 to
$400 or more a month--depending on the size of the ad and the circulation of the
newspaper.

In most cases, however, the problem for a church board is not just the money
involved. It is that whenever an attempt is made to advertise in the newspaper,
nothing seems to happen. Seldom-if ever-does any new person ever respond to it. So
the conclusion is that newspaper advertising for a church and its programs doesn't
work. At least the advertising can't be considered as a part of a church's effective
outreach into its community.

The problem, however, is not that newspaper advertising doesn't work. The fact is
that it does work. It works for businesses, large and small, profit or non-profit. Look
at today's newspaper and study the ads. They are not inexpensive; but they are all
carefully done; and they are placed as they are only after careful thought-and with
an understanding of how such advertising must be prepared in order to do its work.

Sad to say, though, the ads placed by churches on most any Saturday church page
are simply not prepared effectively-not with an eye to what makes an advertisement,
any advertisement, worth the money that it costs. Granted, in many cases those ads
are actually devised with the newspaper's help; but newspaper ad people do what
you tell them to do; they will not, and probably cannot, "fix" your ad for you.

Here is the bottom line: your Saturday church page ad not only OUGHT to bring
new people into your congregation-BUT IT CAN AND WILL-if you will take the
care and time to do it correctly. A good ad CAN get people into your church
doors-at least once. Whether they come back will depend on what goes on during
that Sunday they are there.

So how do you make newspaper advertising work?

Look at the church page ads on any Friday or Saturday, whatever day your page
appears. You will see that, with a few exceptions (usually special church events) the
format for the ads is all the same: church name, address, maybe a small ID symbol,
preacher's name. Then, squarely in the middle of the ad, surrounded by white
space, is the sermon title for Sunday: "Jesus Heals a Demon-Possessed Man,"
or-from my newspaper last week-"Getting Along Without Electricity," or "Walking
in the Holy Land," or "God's Plan for Your Family." Some of the titles are
mundane or cliched; some are silly; some have appeared, in various forms, a
thousand times before.

The problem, though, is not with the title itself, however cute or quirky it might be.
The problem is that nobody responds-ever-to a title. No unchurched woman
perusing the church page on Saturday says to her husband, "Honey, listen to this.
The preacher at X church is going to talk about "Walking in the Holy Land"
tomorrow. I would really like to go hear that. What about you?" That doesn't
happen. And why should it?

What is necessary is to do what any good advertiser does; and that is to write out a
short paragraph-a short one, not a long one-and make the paragraph fit, with small
type, into that same space you are using to get the sermon title and other
information in now. Cut back on the church information itself, if you have to, or
move it to the edges. Get your church name and address in, as well as your service
times. But use the space in the middle of the ad to SAY SOMETHING ABOUT
your sermon, rather than just throwing in its title.

Don't use the space to "write up" some program of your church. Yes, use it to say
something about your sermon. People WILL visit a church if they have reason to
think they will hear something that might have specific value for them, or that they
think might address something that they have been "wondering about." Your task,
on a week to week basis, is to let them know that that might be the case. But you
must write your short ad paragraph, whatever your sermon, in a way that will pique
the interest of a thoughtful, religious, but non-church-going person.

Over the course of several years, I worked on these short paragraphs every week.
And people DID respond to our newspaper ads. We asked them, and they told us.
Our church DID grow, and our newpaper advertising played a key role in that
growth, since we worked hard to keep them once they showed up.

Here's what I did. I discovered that, in our newspaper, our church's existing
two-column ad, usually four inches deep, could handle about 100 words of seven
point type. Small type-the size type didn't matter. And I wrote to that length every
carefully every week.

For example, I prepared a sermon on the church's mission in the world, and how, in
the new global world, that mission is changing. So at the top of our ad were the
church's name, logo, and address. In the bottom quarter of the ad was my name, a
small mug shot of me, our worship service times, church phone number and a note
about the nursery.

In the middle half of the ad, though, this was printed for that Sunday:

"What is the church, in its largest sense, supposed to be doing in the world? What is
its 'mission?' Is the church supposed to 'convert' the world? We have the so-called
Great Commission, which everybody who grew up in church probably knows. But
what does it mean? Or what does it mean for today? Is everyone supposed to give
up his or her religion and become a Christian? Can they still be our brothers and
sisters if they do not?

"In this Sunday's sermon, Dr. Webb will examine these questions about the people
of "other religions." It is a hard question but we will face it. Come be part of this
challenging, and surprising, worship. You never can tell what you may learn."

That Sunday, in our modest sized community, we were able to document ten people
who came to the service for the first time-and all of them said they had come in
response to that ad. I could have just put a title for the sermon in the paper;
something like, "The New Mission of the Church." But what do you suppose would
have been the response to that ad?

Does it take work to do this? Of course it does. More than that, you have to work
ahead-since, in most cases, the ad has to be at the newspaper office by Tuesday for
the following Saturday. So you have to KNOW, at least generally, what you are going
to say the following Sunday. But once you work out that discipline, you still have to
spend an hour or so on Monday getting that short paragraph crafted just right. It is
a fishhook. And you need to write it with that in mind-which means that you frame it
usually (not always) as question-asking. A lot of questions. You do want to "catch"
people with it. You want to make them curious about what you have up your sleeve.

Now, a non-church-going husband perusing the Saturday church page, comes
across that paragraph and says to his wife: "Hey, listen to this-" and he reads the ad
aloud. "We've been talking about tryin' some church again. Maybe we oughta go
have a listen at this one. See what this is all about." That is a real scenario.

For me, one of most memorable moments related to this kind of church advertising
happened when I attended a reception at a local Presbyterian church-not my
denomination. A person who identified herself as a member of that church
recognized me from my picture and struck up a conversation. "You know," she
said, "I don't know if I should tell you this or not. But we have an adult Sunday
School class here at our church, and for the last couple of months we have put away
our regular Sunday School material and had a discussion of those questions of yours
from your church ad in the Saturday ---- News."

BELOW ARE SAMPLES OF ADS THAT WORKED

--Joseph M. Webb