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Who Is Your Target?
Jesus: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
Matthew 15:24
Paul: “I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews.”
Galatians 2:7
I once saw a Peanuts cartoon that described the evangelistic strategy of many churches. Charlie Brown was practicing archery in his backyard. Instead of aiming at a target, he would shoot an arrow at his fence and then walk over and draw a target around wherever the arrow stuck. Lucy walked up and said, “Why are you doing this, Charlie Brown?” He replied without embarrassment, “This way I never miss!”
Unfortunately the same logic is behind a lot of churches’ evangelistic outreach efforts. We shoot arrows of good news into our community and if they happen to hit anyone we say, “That was our target all along!” There is little planning or strategizing behind our efforts—we don’t aim at any specific target. We just draw a bull’s-eye around whomever we reach and settle for that. This is an incredibly callous approach to evangelism. Bringing people to Christ is too important a task for us to have such a casual attitude toward it.
Too many congregations are naive in their thinking about evangelism. If you ask the members, “Who is your church trying to reach for Christ?” the response will likely be, “Everybody! We’re trying to reach the entire world for Jesus Christ.” Of course this is the goal of the Great Commission, and it should be the prayer of every church, but in practice there is not a local church anywhere that can reach everybody.
Because human beings are so different, no single church can possibly reach everyone. That’s why we need all kinds of churches. Together we can accomplish what no single congregation, strategy, or style can accomplish by itself.
Sit in an airport terminal for half a day and it will become quite obvious that God loves diversity. He created an infinite variety of people with different interests, preferences, backgrounds, and personalities. To reach all of these people for Christ will require a variety of styles of evangelism. The message must stay the same, but the methods and style of communicating it will vary greatly.
I always refuse to debate which method of evangelismworks best. It depends on who you are trying to reach! Different kinds of bait catch different kinds of fish. I’m in favor of any method that reaches at least one person for Christ—as long as it is ethical. I think it will be very embarrassing someday when critics of a particular method of evangelism get to heaven and discover all the people who are there because of it! We should never criticize any method that God is blessing.
For your church to be most effective in evangelismyou must decide on a target. Discover what types of people live in your area, decide which of those groups your church is best equipped to reach, and then discover which styles of evangelism best match your target. While your church may never be able to reach everyone, it is especially suited to reaching certain types of people. Knowing who you’re trying to reach makes evangelismmuch easier.
Imagine what would happen to a commercial radio station if it tried to appeal to everyone’s taste in music. A station that alternated its format between classical, heavy metal, country, rap, reggae, and southern gospel would end up alienating everyone. No one would listen to that station!
Successful radio stations select a target audience. They research their broadcast area, figure out which segments of the population are not being reached by other stations, and then choose a format that reaches their target.
Defining our evangelistic target has been the second most important factor behind Saddleback’s growth. After figuring out who our church was best capable of reaching for Jesus Christ, we intentionally went after those people*.* When we plan an evangelistic effort we always have a specific target in mind. The Bible determines our message, but our target determines when, where, and how we communicate it.
It is imperative that you not even think about who your target may be until after you’ve clarified the purposes of your church. The biblical foundation must be laid first. I have watched some churches develop their evangelism strategy beginning with their target, without laying the foundation of God’s eternal purposes. The result was an unstable and unbiblical church driven by market forces rather than the Word of God. The message must never be compromised.
Targeting for Evangelism Is Biblical
The practice of targeting specific kinds of people for evangelism is a biblical principle for ministry. It’s as old as the New Testament. Jesus targeted his ministry. When a Canaanite woman asked Jesus to minister to her demon-possessed daughter, he publicly stated that the Father had told him to focus on “the lost sheep of Israel” (see Matt. 15:22–28). Although Jesus went ahead and healed the Canaanite woman’s daughter because of her faith, he publicly identified his ministry target as the Jews. Was Jesus being unfair or prejudiced? Certainly not! Jesus targeted his ministry in order to be effective, not to be exclusive.
Earlier, Jesus had instructed the disciples to target their ministry also. Matthew 10:5–6 says, “These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.’” Paul targeted his ministry to Gentiles, and Peter targeted his ministry to Jews (Gal. 2:7). Both ministries were needed. Both were important. Both were effective.
Even the gospels were written with specific target audiences in mind. Have you ever considered why God used four writers and four books to communicate the one life of Christ? After all, almost all of the stories and teaching in the gospel of Mark are covered in the gospel of Matthew. Why do we need both books? Because Matthew’s gospel was targeted for the Hebrew reader and Mark’s was targeted for the Gentile reader.
They had the same message, but because they wrote for different audiences, their style of communication differed. Targeting your audience for evangelism is a method God invented! He expects us to witness to people in their own terms.
The concept of evangelistic targeting is built into the Great Commission. We are to make disciples of “all nations.” The Greek termta ethne, from which we derive the word ethnic, refers literally to “all people groups.” Each of these unique people groups needs an evangelistic strategy that communicates the Gospel in terms that their specific culture can understand.
In March of 1995, Billy Graham’s Puerto Rico crusade was broadcast simultaneously in 116 languages to audiences around the world. The message was the same, but it was translated into each country’s language, and culturally appropriate music and testimonies were dubbed into the broadcast. Over one billion people heard the Gospel in languages, music, and testimonies that matched their particular group. It was history’s greatest example of targeted evangelism.
The practice of evangelistic targeting is especially important to small churches. In a small church with limited resources, it is vital that you make the most of what you’ve got. Focus your resources on reaching the people your church can best communicate with.
Small churches must also make choices on tough issues. For example, since it’s impossible to appeal to everyone’s taste in music style in a single service, and small churches can’t offer multiple services, they must choose a target. Changing styles on alternate weeks will produce the same effect as a radio station with a mixed format. No one will be happy.
One of the advantages of being a large church is that you have the resources to go after multiple targets. The larger your church becomes, the more you’ll be able to offer choices in programs, events, and even worship styles. When Saddleback began, we focused on only one target: young, unchurched, white-collar couples. We focused on them because they were the largest group in the Saddleback Valley, and because that was who I related to best. But as our church has grown, we’ve been able to add additional ministries and outreach programs to reach young adults, single adults, prisoners, the elderly, parents with ADD children, and Spanish-, Vietnamese-, and Korean-speaking people, as well as many other targets.
HowDo You Define Your Target?
Targeting for evangelism begins with finding out all you can about your community. Your church needs to define its target in four specific ways: geographically, demographically, culturally, and spiritually.
When I took hermeneutics and preaching classes in seminary, I was taught that to understand the message of the New Testament I had to first understand the geography,
customs, culture, and religion of the people who lived at that time. I could then extract the timeless, eternal truth of God from that context. This process is called “exegesis.” Every biblical preacher uses it.
Unfortunately, no class taught me that before I communicate that timeless truth to people today, I need to “exegete” my own community! I must pay as much attention to the geography, customs, culture, and religious background of my community as I do to those who lived in Bible times if I am to faithfully communicate God’s Word.
Define your target geographically
Jesus had a plan to evangelize the world. In Acts 1:8 he identified four geographic targets for the disciples: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Many Bible scholars point out that this is the exact pattern of growth described in the rest of the book of Acts. The message was taken first to the Jews in Jerusalem, then to Judea, then to Samaria, and eventually it spread across Europe.
In your ministry, geographic targeting simply means you identify where the people live that you want to reach. Get a map of your city or area and mark where your church is located. Estimate a fifteen-to twenty-minute drive in each direction from your church and mark those as borders of your primary ministry area. This is your “evangelistic fishing pond.” Using
the zip codes included in your boundaries, your county government can tell you exactly how many people live within a reasonable driving distance of your church.
When determining your geographic target, there are several factors to keep in mind. First, “reasonable driving distance” is a highly subjective term. The average trip time in a community varies greatly depending on what part of the country you are talking about. Rural residents are willing to drive farther than urban dwellers. People are more likely to travel farther on a freeway than through miles of city stoplights. My best guess is that most people will tolerate about a dozen stoplights at the most when driving to church.
Second, people choose churches today primarily on the basis of relationships and programs, not location*.* Just because your church is closest to someone doesn’t mean you can automatically reach them. Your church may not fit them. On the other hand there are people who will drive past fifteen other churches to attend yours if it meets their needs.
Third, the larger your church grows, the farther its reach will extend. We have people who drive over an hour to attend Saddleback because we offer a program or support group they can’t find anywhere closer to them. As a rule, people are willing to drive farther to attend a large church with a multifaceted ministry than a smaller church with a limited ministry.
Another way to map your ministry target area is to draw a circle around your church representing five miles. Then find
out how many people live in that circle. This is your initial ministry area. Approximately 65 percent of America is unchurched, and that percentage is much higher in many areas, particularly in the West and Northeast and in urban areas. If you calculate the population of your ministry area and then figure what 65 percent of that number is, you’ll see that truly “the fields are ready for harvest.”
Once you’ve defined your geographic target, you’ll know how many people are in your fishing pond. This is very important, since the population of your area is a major factor in determining what strategy you use to bring them in. In a large population center, it is possible to focus on only one segment and still grow a large church. In a smaller population area, you’d have to develop outreaches to several different segments to grow a large church.
It’s foolish to ignore the role of population in predicting how large a church will grow. No matter how dedicated a church is, if the ministry area only has a thousand people in it, the church will never be large. It’s not the pastor’s fault, nor is it a lack of commitment on the part of the congregation. It’s simple arithmetic.
I’ve visited some large churches in metropolitan areas that have chosen a highly specialized strategy that may only reach 1/2 percent of the population. But because 200,000 people live in the area, the church has 1,000 in attendance. You’d be mistaken and disappointed if you thought that by imitating their same strategy your small-town church would grow to the
same size. To be realistic, you need to focus on the percentage of population being reached, not the actual numbers. A strategy that reaches 1,000 in a city of 200,000 is likely to reach 50 in a town of 1,000.
It is both unwise and unhelpful to compare attendance between churches. Every church has a unique fishing pond, and each pond is stocked with a different number and type of fish. It’s like comparing tangerines and submarines: Two churches may sound a lot alike, but on a closer look, their differences will be obvious.
Define your target demographically
Not only do you need to find out how many people live in your area, you need to know what type of people live there. First, let me warn you: Don’t overdo demographic research! You can waste a lot of time collecting facts and information about your community that won’t make any real difference to your church. I’ve known some church planters who spent months preparing beautiful binders full of demographic information on their areas.All of it was interesting, but much of it was not that useful for their church’s purposes.
There are only a handful of relevant demographic facts that you need to discover about the people in your community. I consider the most important factors in targeting a community for evangelismto be
- Age: How many are in each age group?
- Marital status: How many are single adults? How many are married couples?
- Income: What is both the median and the average household income?
- Education: What is the education level of the community?
- Occupation: What types of work are predominant?
Each of these factors will influence how you minister to people and how you communicate the Good News.
Young adults, for example, have different hopes and fears than retirees. A Gospel presentation that emphasizes the assurance of heaven as the benefit of salvation will probably be ineffective in ministering to a young adult who thinks he has his entire life in front of him. He’s not interested in the afterlife. He’s consumed with finding out if there is any meaning or purpose to this life. One national survey showed that less than 1 percent of Americans were interested in the answer to the question, “How can I get to heaven?”
A more effective way to witness to a young adult would be to show how we were made to have fellowship with God now through Christ. On the other hand, many elderly have a very great interest in being prepared for eternity because they know their time on earth may be up at any moment.
Married couples have different interests than single adults. The poor face different problems than the middle class. The
wealthy have their own set of worries. College graduates tend to see the world differently than high school graduates. It is important to know the perspective of those you are seeking to win to Christ.
If you are serious about having your church make an impact, become an expert on your community. Pastors should know more about their communities than anyone else. As I explained in chapter 1, before moving to my community I spent three months studying census statistics and demographic studies so I could determine what kinds of people lived in the Saddleback Valley. Before I set foot there I knew how many people lived there, where they worked, how much they earned, their educational level, and much more.
Where can you get this kind of information? There are a number of resources including the U.S. Census Library, county or city planning departments, newspaper offices, the local Chamber of Commerce, the United Way, local contractors, realtors, and utility companies. Most large denominations also maintain demographic databases you can access.
Define your target culturally
Understanding the demographics of your community is important, but understanding the culture of your community is even more important. This is something you won’t find in census statistics. I use the word culture to refer to the lifestyle and mind-set of those who live around your church. The business world uses the termpsychographics, which is just a
fancy way of referring to people’s values, interests, hurts, and fears. Long before businesses became enamored with psychographics, Christian missionaries were identifying the differences between cultures.
No missionary to a foreign land would try to evangelize and minister to people without first understanding their culture. It would be foolish to do so. In today’s secular environment it is just as important for us to understand the culture we minister in. We don’t have to agree with our culture, but we must understand it.
Within your community there are most likely many subcultures, or subgroups. To reach each of these groups you need to discover how they think. What are their interests? What do they value? Where do they hurt? What are they afraid of? What are the most prominent features of the way they live? What are their most popular radio stations? The more you know about these people, the easier it will be to reach them.
One of the major barriers to church growth is “people blindness”—being unaware of social and cultural differences between people. Are all white people alike? Of course they aren’t. Are all black people alike? Of course not. Are all Hispanics or Asians alike? No. A trained eye will pick up on important distinctions between people who live in your area.
The best way to find out the culture, mind-set, and lifestyle of people is to talk to them personally. You don’t need to hire a
marketing firm, just go out and meet with the people in your community face-to-face. Take your own survey. Ask themwhat they feel are their greatest needs. Listen for their hurts, interests, and fears. No book or demographic report can replace actually talking with the people in your community. Statistics paint only a part of the picture. You must personally spend time with people, getting a feel for your community through one-on-one interaction. I believe there is no substitute for this.
Define your target spiritually
After you have defined your target area culturally, you need to discover the spiritual background of the people in your community. Determine what those in your target area already know about the Gospel. For instance, when I studied the Saddleback Valley, I discovered that 94 percent of Orange County residents believed in God or a universal spirit, 75 percent believed in the biblical definition of God, 70 percent believed in life after death, and 52 percent believed they were here on earth for a spiritual purpose. This was very helpful in knowing where to start with people when witnessing to them.
In order to determine a community’s spiritual climate, you might interview other pastors in the area. Pastors who have served a dozen years in a community should be very aware of that area’s local issues and spiritual trends.
Before I moved to California to start our church, I contacted each of the evangelical pastors in the Saddleback Valley to hear their assessment of the Valley’s spiritual needs. The task
was surprisingly simple. I went to the city library, found a Yellow Pages directory for Orange County, California, looked up “churches,” and wrote down the names and addresses of all the evangelical congregations in the Saddleback Valley. Then I wrote a letter to each pastor explaining what I was doing, and I asked him to answer six questions on an enclosed stamped reply card. I got about thirty cards back. I gained some great insight and began some wonderful long-term friendships with many of those pastors.
A few years ago I read about a study done by New York University on the religious life of Americans. The study reported that 90 percent of all Americans claim some kind of religious affiliation. While that doesn’t mean they are actively practicing their faith, it does mean that almost every American has had some kind of contact with a religious organization in the past.
The termunchurched doesn’t refer to only people who have never been inside a church. It also includes those who have a church background but no personal relationship to Christ, and those who haven’t been in a church for some time, usually years.
Twenty-six percent of Americans claim a Catholic background. If you live on the West Coast, your number-one prospect is probably a former Catholic. If you live in the South, your largest pool of prospects will definitely be those claiming a Baptist background (30 percent). In North Dakota, the odds are that the unchurched person you talk to has a Lutheran
background (28 percent), and in Kansas or Iowa he or she is likely to have a Methodist background (13 percent). In Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah expect a Mormon background. You need to know your area!
Whenever I witness to someone who doesn’t have a relationship to Christ, I try to discover any common ground we may have due to their religious background. For example, when I talk with a Catholic, I know they accept the Bible but have probably never read it, and that they accept the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and Jesus Christ as the Son of God. We already have basic agreement on some major issues. My job then becomes communicating the difference between having a religion based on works and having a relationship to Christ based on grace.
When I speak at pastors’ conferences, I will often have pastors tell me that their church is “just like Saddleback.” When I ask what they mean by that, they respond, “Well, we’re focused on reaching the unchurched.” I say, “That’s wonderful! What kind of unchurched are you reaching?” After all, the unchurched are not all alike! To say that your target is the “unchurched” is an incomplete description. Unchurched intellectuals in Berkeley are very different from farmers in Fresno or unchurched immigrants in Los Angeles.
Defining your church’s evangelistic target takes time and serious study. But once you’ve completed your research you’ll understand why some evangelistic methods work in your area
and why others don’t. It can spare you from wasting valuable effort and money on evangelistic approaches that won’t work.
In the early 1980s some churches tried using telemarketing as a tool for evangelism. Saddleback never jumped on the bandwagon. Why? Because in our targeting surveys we’d already discovered two things: First, we knew that the numberone personal annoyance of Orange County residents was “strangers who call to sell me something on the telephone.” Second, we knew that more than half of our community had unlisted phone numbers! That settled that. It is amazing to me that churches often spend thousands of dollars on evangelistic projects without first asking the people they intend to reach if they think the programwill work.
Personalize Your Target
Once you’ve collected all the information on your community, I encourage you to create a composite profile of the typical unchurched person your church wants to reach. Combining the characteristics of residents in your area into a single, mythical person will make it easier for members of your church to understand who your target is. If you’ve done a good job at collecting information, your members should recognize this mythical person as their next-door neighbor.
At Saddleback, we’ve named our composite profile “Saddleback Sam.” Most of our members would have no problem describing Sam. We discuss him in detail in every membership class.
Saddleback Sam is the typical unchurched man who lives in our area. His age is late thirties or early forties. He has a college degree and may have an advanced degree. (The Saddleback Valley has one of the highest household education levels in America.) He is married to Saddleback Samantha, and they have two kids, Steve and Sally.
Surveys show that Sam likes his job, he likes where he lives, and he thinks he’s enjoying life now more than he was five years ago. He’s self-satisfied, even smug, about his station in life. He’s either a professional, a manager, or a successful entrepreneur. Sam is among the most affluent of Americans, but he carries a lot of debt, especially due to the price of his home.
Health and fitness are high priorities for Sam and his family. You can usually see Sam jogging each morning, and Samantha attends an aerobics class three times a week at the Family Fitness Center. Both of them like to listen to contemporary pop and country music, especially when they are working out.
When it comes to socializing, Sam and his wife would rather be in a large group than a small one. Why? In a crowd, Samcan hide and maintain the anonymity and privacy that he jealously
guards. Sam has an unlisted phone number and may live in a gated community. (This was the main reason we used direct mail advertising in the first years of Saddleback. It was the only way to contact many of the homes in our area.)
Another important characteristic of Sam’s is that he’s skeptical of what he calls “organized” religion. He’s likely to say, “I believe in Jesus. I just don’t like organized religion.” We like to counter this by joking, “Then you will like Saddleback. We’re disorganized religion!”
Sam, because he is a southern Californian, prefers casual, informal meetings over anything stiff and formal. He loves to dress down for the mild southern California climate. We take this into account when planning services to attract Sam. For example, I never wear a coat and tie when I speak at Saddleback services. I intentionally dress down to match the mind-set of those I’m trying to reach. I follow Paul’s strategy given in 1 Corinthians 9:20: “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.” In my situation I’m sure Paul would say, “When in southern California I became like a southern Californian in order to win southern Californians!” I don’t think how people dressed mattered a lot to Jesus. We’d rather have a pagan come to church in tennis shoes and shorts than not come because he doesn’t own a suit.
Saddleback Sam is also overextended in time and money. His credit card is used to the limit. He is very materialistic, and yet will honestly admit that his wealth has not brought him lasting happiness.
Why do we go to all this trouble defining the typical person we’re trying to reach? Because the more you understand someone the easier it is to communicate with him.
If you were to create a profile of the typical resident in your area, what characteristics would you give him? What would you name him? It’s worth thinking about. Once you’ve defined and named your church’s evangelistic target, do me a favor: Send me a copy*.* I have a hobby of collecting church evangelistic profiles. I have a file filled with characters like Dallas Doug, Memphis Mike, and Atlanta Al.
Can you imagine a photographer shooting pictures without taking the time to focus? What deer hunter would stand on top of a hill and shoot randomly into the valley without taking aim at something? Without a target, our efforts at evangelism are often only wishful thinking. Of course it takes time to focus and aim, but it also pays off. The more your target is in focus, the more likely it is that you will be able to hit it.