By Mary C. Frances, Senior Associate Consultant

If you are a frequent reader of this blog (and I hope you are!) then you know that the FaithX team was recently at the Episcopal Church General Convention in Louisville, KY. We planned for this event for months as we expected it would provide us with face-to-face access to many current and potential future clients. We had a multi-pronged marketing approach that started well before the convention and included geo-targeting, social media posts, email blasts, QR codes, landing pages and flyers culminating in, we hoped, both increased brand awareness as well as many conversations about who we are, what we do and how we can help congregations and judicatories. The advance marketing work went smoothly, but when we got on the ground in Louisville, we found there was one big problem.

The problem was that the hours of the exhibition hall almost totally coincided with the hours of the meetings for bishops and deputies (delegates). When would anyone have time to visit our booth (and all the booths) if they were in meetings at the same time we were allowed to be at our booth? After one long day with only a handful of visitors, we started to identify a pattern that proved to be helpful. The convention hall lobby was crowded with people before and after meetings. We quickly realized that we could best connect with people if we left our booth and met them right where they were – in the lobby – on their way to lunch or coffee or another meeting. From that point on, each of us on the team grabbed our cards and marketing materials first thing in the morning and left our booth to engage the folks we had planned to meet along. Will our plan work? We don’t know yet, but we do know that being adaptable provided us with more opportunities than if we had just stayed at our booth twiddling our thumbs.

Sometimes the best laid plans just don’t work out as we had hoped. The question is: what do we do about it? If you keep inviting people to worship and you aren’t seeing more visitors, do you keep on doing the same thing or do you adapt, change course? The church is one of those institutions known for being committed to doing the same thing over and over again but in reality, the church today bears little resemblance to the church we read about in Acts. The church has adapted over the years and we continue to do so today.

Here at FaithX we have tools that might help you look at your ministry and community in new ways and help you adapt to our changing world. The Congregational Vitality Assessment is a free tool that helps congregations hold up a mirror to themselves and learn about their strengths and areas for improvement. The Neighborhood Insight Report helps congregations learn more about the community around them and how they might engage in new and different ways. Interested in setting up your congregation to be more adaptable? Let us know at info@faithx.net