Rewarding Your People

By Rev Albert Kang

 

When you plant a Church, you are not planting a building but a congregation. Congregation is made out of people. This immediately tells you how important people are to your church growing healthily and bigger.

For the pastors who are reading this article - remember this cardinal rule: Programs do not keep people in your church, people keep people. In as much as people bring people, they also stay because of each other. The fact has a way of  deflating our pastoral ego - more than 80 percent of the congregation will stay because of somebody in the congregation and not because of our great preaching and teaching abilities. Humbling isn’t it?

Not Just Friendly But Learn How To Make Friends

Weekly emphasis from the pulpit is made on the importance of evangelism. Encourage your members not only to be friendly but to make friends. Many congregations are friendly especially towards other existing members. However, when a new person or family turns up at church, few members actually befriend them. Before the month is over, the new person or family would have moved on to try out another church.

Evangelistic Aids

Supply all kinds of relevant tracts so that your members can give them out freely. You can buy very cheap tracts from bookstores or if you are a good writer, create your own tracts. Nowadays, printing cost is quite reasonable. 

Conduct regular workshops to show members how to evangelize and share the Gospel. Many church members are willing to reach out to their own communities if only they knew how to do it.

Reward Your People

Reward the members who bring friends by recognizing their efforts in front of the congregation or by giving them a certificate of appreciation. Show everybody in the church that the leadership approves and rewards evangelistic efforts. Believers who donate money for evangelistic efforts should be recognized too. Small groups or cells that win souls are also mentioned in the weekly bulletins. During the baptism of the new converts in water, the cell leaders whose cell has won the most people to Christ, should be asked to participate in the actual baptism. In some churches, the cell that produces the best annual result in term of winning souls gets sponsored to attend a church growth seminar in other countries. We do all these not because believers only serve for the sake recognition. The purpose is to encourage the evangelism culture. Once this culture has a firm foothold in the church, then winning souls will become second nature to all who join the church later.