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Back to School with Igniting Ministries

Written: 7/23/2008

People across Missouri are about to get invited to your church.

Igniting Ministry, the marketing arm of the United Methodist Church, is mailing postcards to households in the St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield area in early August, inviting them to attend a United Methodist Church in their area. Two weeks later, postcards will be mailed to new residents in the same zip codes. The first mailing will be a saturation mailing and will hit 1,046,215 residences in St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield. The second mailing will reach new movers in the same areas and hit 26,968 residences.

The mailing, paid for by the General Church, is occurring in Missouri because Missouri is an Igniting Ministry test conference. For the past four years, the Missouri Conference has partnered with United Methodist Communications to implement and help track the impact of Igniting Ministry. Welcoming training and certification, special advertising test activities, and many free resources have been part of this arrangement, including broadcast advertising, Internet advertising and billboards.

The 2007 tracking study conducted by The Barna Group showed both the highest advertising awareness levels (30% of people surveyed remembered seeing United Methodist advertising last year) and the highest willingness to visit a United Methodist Church (54% of people surveyed in 2007 said they’d be willing to visit one of our churches) since 2001.

The “Back to School” run of national cable television Igniting Ministry advertising will begin Sept. 1, and run for two weeks.

National Igniting Minsitry ads direct seekers to www.unitedmethodist.org, which includes a directory of churches. It is very important that churches go to this site and check to see if their phone numbers, Web site and e-mail addresses still correct.

Some churches have taken the campaign a step further, and put up some of their own money to receive an Igniting Ministry matching grant. For the Back to School time in Missouri, local churches receiving Igniting Ministry grants are Jefferson County UMC in Arnold, Memorial UMC in Farmington, Ozark UMC and Waynesville UMC.

Igniting Ministry encourages all churches to get ready for guests and to be especially intentional about welcoming newcomers in September. It is a good time for picnics, concerts, community clean-up days and other activities that can attract newcomers.

If you have questions, feel free to contact Igniting Ministry at 877-281-6535 or go to www.ignitingminstry.org.