Candy has been used for outreach before. In fact, it is a staple of children’s ministry.

However, M&M’s has created a whole new opportunity for creative pastors. You can now have a custom message printed on your choice of 17 different colors of M&M’s. Before you fall out of your chair with brainstorming excitement, realize that there are some restrictions:

• The message must fit on two lines of eight characters each.
• Keep your messages fun and positive; refrain from using objectionable words and phrases. No obscenities…we don’t want to leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth.
• Custom printed M&M’S® Candies are for personal use only. No business names, product names, celebrity names, specific sports teams, major events, landmarks, names of schools or institutions. You’re smart…use your creativity and work around these specifics.

I like that they encourage bending their rules in the last sentence. Perhaps you could use a phrase like “Visit Us Sun 9 AM” but highlight your church with a small card that could be attached to the packaging. It would take some creativity, but it is sure to make your church memorable. Also, it is a great way to ensure potential guests won’t forget what time to show up. It is a little expensive; the most cost effective option is 16 2oz bags for $60.

Let me know if you use this to promote your church. I would like to hear about its effectiveness.

Special thanks to Three Minds for highlighting the resource earlier this month.

I just posted February 2006’s Church Relevance newsletter to the articles section of our site. It discusses the importance of creating a ministry that is marketable before investing time and money into marketing your ministry.

If you want to find out what the four biggest areas of your church’s marketability are, read Marketability First.

We will be posting articles from Church Relevance’s newsletter a few months after we send them to subscribers. If you would like to receive the latest issues of Church Relevance’s newsletter as soon as possible, you may sign up to begin your free monthly subscription to our newsletter.

Christianity Today has a good article on seven ways to measure your church’s ministry. The article states that “that most people rate church atmosphere within the first 15 minutes of their first visit.” The below seven areas will most likely contribute to how people rate your church’s atmosphere on their first visit:

1. Sensing the presence of God. “Experiencing the supernatural dwarfs everything else as people rate a church’s atmosphere.”
2. Others-centered. “An others-centered church is immediately interested in new people, what they need, and how the church can help.”
3. Understandable terminology. “Healthy churches tend to speak in terms everyone can understand.”
4. People who look like me. “Our level of comfort can be high or low depending on how quickly we find someone else who looks like us.”
5. Healthy problem handling. “What makes a healthy church is not the absence of problems. It’s how problems are handled.”
6. Accessibility. “High ratings go to churches that are ‘barrier free’ in every sense of the term.”
7. Sense of Expectancy. “Most healthy churches are hopeful churches.”

If interested in reading more about the seven ways you can church, I encourage you to read the full text at Christianity Today.

This past weekend, Luke Wroblewski, an interface designer for Yahoo!, highlighted a number of conference reports recently published from Montreal’s CHI2006, a conference on human factors in computing systems.

A particularly interesting report is Scott Cook’s thoughts on innovation. Scott Cook is founder of Intuit, the software company famous for programs such as Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax. Highlights include:

• “The goal is to change lives so profoundly that people can’t imagine living without this.”
• “The only way to grow business is to have (customers) come back for more and tell their friends.”
• “Invention comes from mindset change.”
• It is “seeing what everyone else is seeing and yet thinking what no one else has thought.”
• “GO out to your customers first and design from that.”
• “Before you can walk a mile in someone else’s shoes you must first remove your own.”
• “Start with the user, then the problem, then design.”
• “Don’t do surveys which reinforce the company’s existing mindset, but get into the customer’s actual space.”
• “First: make it a great environment for (employees), then great for customers, then great for shareholders.”

What can the church learn from this?

1. Create a ministry that leaves an impact. If you “Wow” people with how much you care or with a great church experience, you will give them a reason to “come back for more and tell their friends.”
2. Focus on Jesus not tradition. Avoid a fixed mindset on tradition or any other barriers. Innovation requires a customer oriented mindset. Innovative ministry requires a people oriented mindset.
3. Understand people and their problems. But people change, which means you constantly need to be learning.
4. A great work environment is a key to effective church staff. The right environment nurtures creativity and leaves your staff happier and more productive. Ultimately, it creates a better church experience.

Walt Disney’s imagination has been capturing the imagination and excitement of others for decades. Why? He knew how to convert his thoughts into a great customer experience. Kem Meyer, Granger Community Church’s communications director, posted ten keys to a great guest experience derived from Be Our Guest by the Disney Institute.

1. “Know your audience. Before creating a setting, obtain a firm understanding of who will be using it.”
2. “Wear your guest’s shoes. That is, never forget the human factor. Evaluate your setting from the customer’s perspective by experiencing it as a customer.”
3. “Organize the flow of people and ideas. Think of a setting as a story and tell that story in a sequenced, organized way. Build the same order and logic into the design of customer movement.”
4. “Create a visual magnet. It’s a visual landmark used to orient and attract people.”
5. “Communicate with visual literacy. Language is not always composed of words. Use common languages of color, shape and form to communicate through a setting.”
6. “Avoid overload–create turn-ons. Do not bombard customers with data. Let them choose the information they want when they want it.”
7. “Tell one story at a time. Mixing multiple stories in a single setting is confusing. Create one setting for each big idea.”
8. “Avoid contradictions; maintain identity. Every detail and every setting should support and further your organizational identity and mission.”
9. “For every ounce of treatment provide a ton of treat. Give your customers the highest value by building an interactive setting that gives them the opportunity to exercise all of their senses.”
10. “Keep it up. Never get complacent and always maintain your setting.”

Of course, these rules are not limited to Disney. Your ministry can experience success like Disney by applying these principles. Fundamentally, it involves caring about people, learning about them, and clearly communicating to them not simply with words but also design, details, and well thought out systems. The November issue of Church Relevance’s newsletter also addresses the importance of communicating without words.

Whenever it rains, Granger Community Church (Granger, IN) and Element Church (St. Louis, MO) both use greeters with umbrellas to escort people from their cars to the church. It’s a great idea - one that every church should use.

Something that may interest those churches creating great first impressions with umbrella greeters is Quincy Store’s new double umbrella. What better way to accomodate visitors to your church than with a double umbrella.

Special thanks to Three Minds for their report about the new umbrella.

Guy Kawasaki has posted two blogs, The Art of Customer Service and The Art of Customer Service, Part II, for a total of 18 great customer service tips.

Highlights from the first blog include:

• Start at the top. The quality of service provided to your church’s congregation and guests is primarily determined by the senior pastor’s attitude towards customer service.
• Hire the right kind of people. Whether staff or volunteers, it is important to find the right people for customer service. Not everyone is gifted in this area.

Highlights from the second blog include:

• Use their name. If someone tells you their name, use it. It makes a big difference. It is a key to making a personal connection with first time guests.
• Have operating procedures, not scripts. Teach your staff and volunteers to understand the principles behind what you do. If they do not understand the “why”, they likely won’t do it right. Guy Kawasaki states that having standard operating procedures ensures the job is done properly.
• Make customers feel important.
• Follow-up. Follow-ups make big impressions. If someone in your congregation makes a suggestion or reports a problem, follow-up with a phone call or email. If a preschooler gets a scrape during playtime, don’t simply tell the parent after service but follow-up with a phone call or email during the week. Church on the Move (Tulsa, OK) will follow-up with a family if they notice that their elementary age child has missed more than a month of service. Follow-ups are about letting people know you care.

Two days ago, I blogged about Big Weekend Marketing. I highlighted Community Christian Church’s three keys to creating a big weekend.

Yesterday, Dave Ferguson announced the payoff of their work. They had 700 new attendees! Their attendance was 4881 compared to their average 4181, which was a 16.7% increase. Hard work pays off.

Congrats CCC!