The Rule of 52

Just came across an interesting article by Chris Forbes over at Ministry Marketing Coach about how we can maximize our outreach without spending a dime. Here is the part that jumped out at me.

I once read a marketing book that talked about the “Rule of 52”. The book said that 52 is the average number of people in the average wedding or funeral. That means that everyone knows at least 52 people that love and care about them.

In a church of just ten people there are least 520 people connected to the membership. How many of those names can you get a hold of and make a personal contact with? How many of them know what faith in Christ is all about? Start working that list this week!

You don’t have to act like an annoying salesman when you contact these people, just touch base with them and see if you might have a friend connection. At the very least you can pray for them and see if there might be a way you can serve them and let God open the doors for outreach.

I’ll go out on a limb here and predict, that if you start caring about people and praying for them and helping them, you’ll find you have more prospects for your church than you can keep up with! Your members will start bringing their contacts to church and will be talking about your church to the people they know.