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3 Keys to an Explosive Fall

Autumn can be one of the most explosive seasons in your church. At Calvary (the church I pastor), we see the fall season as a time to reach new people and reap a harvest of unchurched people coming to know Jesus.

To give you some background, let me share a little bit of our story. We started our church in Miami because we wanted to reach people far from God. However, after 18 months of ministry, we learned we had not reached one person who didn’t know Jesus. Needless to say, after discovering that information, if there had been a bridge nearby, I think I would have jumped. Harry Nilsson wrote, “One is the loneliest number,” but I’m not sure I believe him because zero is pretty bad. Maybe one is the loneliest number, and zero is the lamest number.

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Let me fast-forward to the present and what God has done in our midst. In the past eighteen months, more than 1,200 people have made first-time decisions, and more than 2,500 have committed their lives to Jesus. Here’s the question that I’ve been asked by thousands of pastors over the last few years: “What happened?”

There are several things that happened in our turnaround, but if I were to point to one thing, I would say that we became very intentional about leveraging each season. That’s what this special report is all about.

I want to give you three keys to leveraging the fall season for maximum impact in your church.

Key to an Explosive Fall #1 – Understand the Culture of the Fall

Every fall, I go to Target to buy school supplies for my kids. This past year, my wife had to physically restrain me from buying a Trapper Keeper and a protractor. Why? Simply put, during the fall, people are thinking about growth, learning, and hitting the books.

Our goal is simply to join the conversation people are already having. If people are thinking about learning, then let’s leverage that for kingdom purposes. You can fight the calendar, but I promise you’ll lose every time. Instead, make the calendar your ally and use it to guide your preaching and outreach schedule.

If people are thinking about love at Valentine’s Day, then let’s talk about relationships. If people are thinking about resolutions for the New Year, why not simply enter that conversation? What you’ll find is that people are more open when you pique their curiosity and relate to them based on what they are already experiencing.