Grow Your Church and Increase Your Impact by Reaching the People Who Need Your Message the Most.
Your church may welcome everyone, but that doesn’t mean everyone responds to the same message, ministry, program or experience.
The A.I.M.S. Analysis™ is Herman Garner’s proprietary method for helping you identify the people who need to hear your message the most and develop and outreach strategy to get them to join your church.
Aim Your Resources. Focus Your Outreach. Reach More People.
A.I.M.S. organizes growth and outreach strategy around four connected decisions: Attribute, Impact, Market and Strategy.
Instead of starting with Facebook, YouTube, advertising, flyers or community events, the analysis begins by understanding your message, identifying who is most likely to respond, and where those people can be reached.
Your Church Welcomes Everyone. But Who Is Most Likely to Respond?
Two churches can preach from the same Bible and still attract completely different people because the value people receive from those ministries can be very different.
Don’t Begin With the Marketing Channel.
Most Organizations Don’t Have a Marketing Problem. They Have a Targeting Problem.
Organizations often spend money on websites, social media, advertising and promotion before clearly deciding who they’re trying to reach.
A.I.M.S. helps reverse that order so the strategy begins with the people, not the advertising platform.
Four Decisions That Shape a Focused Outreach Strategy.
The framework is simple to understand. The value comes from working through it carefully and applying it to your specific organization.
Why Do People Respond to a Ministry Like Joel Osteen’s?
Saying that Lakewood reaches “Christians” doesn’t tell us very much. Its public positioning is strongly associated with hope, encouragement, optimism, purpose and practical Christian faith.
A person looking for encouragement after a difficult week may respond very differently from a person primarily looking for intensive theological instruction.
Once you understand that difference, you begin making very different decisions about audience, outreach and strategy.
See the A.I.M.S. Analysis Applied to Real Ministries.
A Completed Church Growth & Outreach Strategy Your Leadership Team Can Use.
At the end of the A.I.M.S. process, your church will have a completed strategy that identifies who you should focus on reaching, why those people are likely to respond to your ministry, where they can be found, and how your church should reach them.
The Better You Understand the People, the Better You Can Aim the Outreach.
A young family, a discouraged professional, a college student, a senior, and someone rebuilding life after a major setback may all be open to attending church.
But they may be looking for very different things. A.I.M.S. helps your church identify the differences that matter instead of treating the entire community as one audience.
Church Growth & Outreach Strategy Workshop
Bring together your pastor, leadership team, ministry leaders, outreach committee or communications team and apply A.I.M.S. directly to your church.
The workshop generally takes approximately 2–4 hours. Each quadrant becomes a structured discussion about your ministry, the people you’re trying to reach and the strategic decisions your organization needs to make.
The result is not a generic church marketing plan. It is a focused strategy built around your church.
Three Ways to Experience A.I.M.S.
Learn the method, apply it directly to your church or introduce the strategy to your audience.
Learn the framework through instruction, examples and guided application so you can build an A.I.M.S. Analysis for your own organization.
Work directly with Herman as your leadership team applies the framework to your own church and develops a focused growth and outreach direction.
A practical presentation for church conferences, leadership meetings, ministry events and organizations interested in growth, outreach and strategy.
A.I.M.S. Church Growth Course — Coming Soon
The online course will teach church leaders how to work through the A.I.M.S. framework using examples and guided application.
If you would rather have the process facilitated for your organization, the Church Growth & Outreach Workshop applies the method directly to your church.
Reach More People. Build Deeper Engagement. Increase Your Impact.
Growth can mean more first-time visitors, more families involved, more volunteers, stronger participation, deeper community relationships and more people attending your church.
A focused strategy helps leadership determine which opportunities deserve more attention and where limited resources can have the greatest impact.
Better Outreach Begins With Knowing Exactly Who You Are Trying to Reach.
Clarify who is most likely to respond to your ministry, determine where those people can be found and focus your resources on reaching them.