Exploratory Outreach Initiatives in Idaho Falls, Idaho & Bend, Oregon

The Pacific Northwest District Mission Board partnered with Praise and Proclaim to assist their efforts to further mission fields in their area.

The intent is to explore areas to gauge the potential, understand that the Lord often leads and guides gospel intentions with activity, and bolster previous efforts by providing training for a faithful — yet timid — groups of WELS transplants in the targeted area.

Ultimately, it is the District Mission Board’s desire to provide an application for the WELS Board of Home Missions to consider granting mission status that will enable a pastor to come and lead efforts to plant a new church.

The outreach initiatives planned for the summer included Bend, Oregon, and Idaho Falls, Idaho.

With both initiatives, we conducted the following:

• Prepare a web landing page to receive a gospel message and collect email addresses.
• Conduct a digital advertising campaign that pointed people to a designated web page.
• Go canvassing over a three-day period to visit with people, gauge interest, and collect addresses and phone numbers.
• Train the core group (in Idaho Falls) how to comfortably engage people, invite them to participate, and confidently give a reason for the hope believers have in Christ.

Bend, Oregon

A website domain was purchased and built for the outreach initiative in Bend. The website is www.hopeinbend.com.  A professional-looking logo was created to give the campaign and the site credibility.

People were encouraged to help find and spread hope throughout the Bend community and invited to download a document, 30 Ways to Find and Spread Hope. People were required to give an email address so that the document can be sent to them. These emails will be utilized to further engage and invite.

Pastor Jason Strong (Fairbanks, AK) provided a short gospel message on the web landing page. He will also conduct online Bible Information Classes with people who express interest. When the Lord provides people to form a core group, Pastor Matt Vogt will work with them to strengthen and develop them.

We knocked on almost nine hundred homes and were given assistance by Grace Lutheran Church (Rev. Roger Emmons), an ELS church in the nearby city of Redmond, OR. The people at the door responded well to the invitation to help us spread hope in Bend and it provided an excellent entry point for us to lovingly communicate the true hope that can only be found in Christ.

Digital advertising results on Facebook/Instagram:

• Impressions: 66,041
• Reach: 12,696
• Reactions, Comments, Shares: 22
• Clicks: 216
• Budget Spent: $250

Impressions:
Impressions are the total number of exposures to your digital advertisement. For instance, one person can receive multiple exposures of your ad over time. If one person was exposed to an advertisement five times, this would count as five impressions.

Reach:
Reach is the number of unique users you have exposed your advertisement to. This can refer to the number of unique users reached in a digital campaign, not the total number of impressions delivered. In other words, Reach is the total number of people who see your content and Impressions are the number of times your content is displayed, even if it was clicked or not.

Reactions, Comments, Shares:
These are instances where a person responds to the content on their Facebook page. This can be in the form of a like, posting a comment, or sharing the post with their followers.

Clicks:
The number of times people clicked the link in the digital advertisement.

The Lord has provided us with eight contacts to follow up with in the months ahead. Work will continue to periodically canvass and launch future digital advertising campaigns once every quarter.

Idaho Falls, Idaho

A small group of three to four families of WELS members who have moved into the area in the past two years have been regularly meeting together. Last spring, the Board of Home Missions deferred their request to be granted mission access. In response, the group knew they needed assistance with outreach efforts and the Pacific Northwest District Mission Board stepped in with training and a plan.

A website domain was purchased and built for the outreach initiative in Idaho Falls. The website is www.hopeinchristalone.com  A professional-looking logo was created to give the campaign and the site credibility.

People were encouraged to help find and spread hope throughout the Idaho Falls community and were invited to download a document, 30 Ways to Find and Spread Hope. People were required to give an email address so that the document can be sent to them.

Pastor Mark Parsons from Boise (Truth in Love Ministry) was asked by the DMB to shepherd the group by providing on-line Bible instruction and periodically stopping by to provide Word and sacrament. He agreed to provide a short gospel message and is willing to conduct online Bible Information classes with people who express interest. Pastor Matt Vogt will also come to Idaho Falls regularly to meet and encourage them.

Before the outreach initiative started, the core group in Idaho Falls wanted to have a name for their group. They settled on “Christ Alone” as a designation for their group with the prayerful intent to become a church in the future. Christ Alone is a wonderful name to allow them to proclaim what Christ alone has done for them.  In an area that is 50% Mormon, this also can serve to describe what the Bible teaches in way that Mormons can understand and differentiate from Mormonism’s grace-plus-works teachings.

The three-day outreach initiative was blessed with four couples from St. Pauls-Onalaska, WI who travelled all the way to Idaho Falls. Their presence was a blessing, and their activity furthered God’s kingdom. Over 1400 homes were visited and we talked to several hundred people.  At the end of the day, there were nineteen people/families who expressed interest to learn more.

Digital advertising results on Facebook/Instagram:

• Impressions: 41,076
• Reach: 9,940
• Reactions, Comments, Shares: 21
• Clicks: 211
• Budget Spent: $250

In conjunction with the synod’s vision to plant 100 churches in ten years, both outreach initiatives also served to develop a prototype that could be repeated elsewhere to help congregations and district mission boards to further their efforts to plant a new church.

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Could an exploratory outreach initiative be a good fit for your community? Contact us to learn more!