When we first went to our parish, we went in incognito mode — aka, I didn't tell anyone about my background in church work or Gloriam or my master's or any of that.

I just...went to Mass.

After almost a decade of working for a church, it was GLORIOUS.

I knew that someday I'd want to get back into volunteering and being part of groups, but I needed to just tend to my own spiritual life for a bit.

And somehow, I managed to remain incognito for almost a year and a half. Until I made the fatal mistake of writing a blog post on Gloriam about all the things my parish was doing right in terms of welcoming, which our parochial vicar saw and shared on the church Facebook page, blowing my cover.

I'm pretty sure it took less than a month before I was leading the parish's marketing committee. 😂

Now, I'm not saying you have incognito church marketers in your pews. But I would guess there may be people in your pews who do want to get more involved, but aren't for a variety of reasons.

Note: I'm not saying we push people into involvement who don't want to. Everyone is at a different place in their spiritual journey. I'm talking about the people who would get involved, but just haven't yet.

So, here are three places to find those people and how to communicate to them to invite them to deeper involvement:

Daily Mass

You've probably already thought of these people, and stereotypically, most of them are probably already involved. But this week, take another look. Is there anyone there who comes regularly but who you haven't taken the time to get to know? Start with making sure you say hello after Mass.

There's probably few enough people that you can communicate 1:1 here, and that kind of marketing is always the most effective! You can most likely just jump right to asking this group to volunteer, and they'd probably be honored to be asked.

Summer

In every parish I've been to, attendance drops over the summer. The weather's nicer, people are traveling or doing things, and there's no obligation to attend from school or religious ed.

So look around your less-crowded summer pews. These are your year-round regulars. Do you know all of them? Are they engaged in the parish?

If not, consider why that might be. Do they not know anyone? Are the times not convenient for their work schedules? Do they not feel confident enough in their own faith to share it with others?

For this group, I would strongly suggest to serve before you sell. It's a phrase I use for my Catholic small businesses to remind them to give away value before they ask people for money — and the same holds true for churches.

Instead of jumping right to this group to volunteer, see if you can serve THEM first before you ask. I know it's tempting to see if you can get some catechists or food pantry volunteers from this group, but instead, try connecting them with a group — a Bible study, Alpha, men's group, etc.

Focus on getting them involved on the ministry side first, not the service side, so you show you care about their soul and faith journey and not just how they can help the parish.

Holy Days of Obligation

HDO attendance is an often overlooked opportunity to identify your ready-to-become-engaged parishioners. This group is voluntarily coming to an extra Mass that week, and whereas your Daily Mass schedule may not accommodate their work schedule, they'll make the effort for the HDO. This widens your potential-to-engage pool to people who may love to attend Daily Mass, but can't because of their work or caretaking responsibilities.

For this group, I would consider creating a short mini bulletin (it can literally be a double-sided flyer) with some ways to get involved to be handed out after Mass.

Even better, consider adding an event or group onto the Mass, especially if it's in the evening. They're already there — get them to engage right then with a dinner afterwards, talk, group meeting, etc. Hopefully, they'll meet some other regulars and realize there's more ways they can engage with the parish besides "just" Mass.

It's easy for us to assume with these groups that because they're at Mass, they would get involved if they wanted to. But often, they DO want to get involved, they just don't know what with or aren't ready to specifically volunteer.

Reaching out 1:1 and connecting them with other folks based on where they may be in their faith journey may be all the push they need to become more engaged parishioners — and what church doesn't want more engaged parishioners?!

For His greater glory,

Emily

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Future of Church Communications I stumbled across this resource last week and it was impressive! I was really intrigued by their research and suggestions. Note: It is extremely extensive, so definitely something you'll want to set aside some time to read and absorb. Read article