2 W O R L D B I B L E S C H O O L | C O N N E C T

All students who enroll at your WBS Connect web site will be taught by WBS Teachers at your church.

STUDENTS

Your WBS teach-ers will have email access to the WBS support team.

SUPPORT

WBS is one way your congregation can fulfill the Great Commission in your own community. Join WBS Connect! WBS’ mission is clear: to share the Good News of Jesus with the world using everyday Christians and interactive Bible studies. With WBS Connect, your church uses WBS’ study materials and technologies. You provide the promotional efforts to seek and enroll your WBS students in a specific location, anywhere in the world.

Your members will be their WBS teachers. When a WBS student is ready to experience the church or have one-on-one contact with a Christian, you and your church are there for them. Is your church involved with missions? WBS Connect provides the tools for your members to teach with your missionaries where they are without

leaving home. Again, when WBS students are ready, your missionary can be right there for personal contact.

he Good News of Jesus is for all, all around the world. But right here at home, the church in the U.S. is not even keeping up with the growth of the population. We as God’s people, simply must be

more evangelistic and serving. We must connect with those around us.

WBS doesn’t provide students for you: you find them yourself. WBS Connect offers promotional ideas and designs to help you cost- effectively find Bible students in a targeted area using your own members and outreach programs.

Your church will have its own customized, WBS-branded web page integrated into WBS’ teaching website. Your tar-geted promotions will direct potential students to this site where they can enroll to study the Bible and be taught by members at your church.

Use this special WBS service to manage your online advertise-ments to target your community or a mission point.

Take Jesus to your community.

IDEAS SITE WEB ADS

OPTIONAL SERVICE

Here’s what you’ll get with the program:

T

W O R L D B I B L E S C H O O L | C O N N E C T 3

How to join WBS Connect

Together, we can ultimately enroll more Bible students, with less cost, and involve more everyday Christians in sharing Jesus. It’s not hard to become a WBS Connect church, but it’s important to have your church leadership fully on-board. Take these steps to enroll your church.

1. Understand the costs (see below). WBS Connect is not expensive, but there are costs to consider.

2. Get the commitment of your church. The WBS Connect program will not work well without the ongoing, dedicated effort of your church. It will take a commitment to teaching with WBS, prayerful planning, able implementation, an engaged membership, spiritual oversight, consistent efforts, and ongoing prayer.

3. Choose a Connect web page name for your unique WBS Connect enrollment page. For example, in the address truth.worldbibleschool.org, “truth” is the web page name. Your promotional efforts will drive traffic to your unique WBS Connect enrollment page.

4. Now you can enroll in WBS Connect by visiting www.worldbibleschool.net/connect.

* If you do not want to have your own WBS Connect enrollment website or teach students through the Internet, you can purchase the WBS Connect Ideas documentation and files for only $50.

It is up to you to seek and enroll your own WBS students. It will require planning, a budget and effort, whether for advertising, direct mail, printing, events, WBS Web Ads, etc.

Basic WBS Connect is available to you at no charge (trial period through March 2016). Advanced statistical reporting on your campaigns is available for $10/month per campaign.B

To teach with printed lessons, a nominal investment is needed for a small inventory of WBS lessons and postage for your WBS Postal Teachers.C

Here’s a look at the nominal costs of the WBS Connect program.

Take the next step: Visit www.worldbibleschool.net/connect to apply online.

CHURCH

IDEAS

SITE

SUPPORT

STUDENTS

A

4 W O R L D B I B L E S C H O O L | C O N N E C T

WBS Connect idea documentation covers information about advertising for Bible study through personal outreach, church outreach, online advertising, direct mail, newspapers, billboards, and many more media. WBS Connect materials are fill-in-the-blank style printed pieces ready for you to print. You can adapt WBS Connect collateral for your own use. Everything you print for yourself must be edited by a

capable individual with desktop publishing or image editing software. (WBS provides JPEG format graphics files and Adobe InDesign source files.) The WBS Connect documentation offers best practices for creating and rolling out your promotional efforts. Years of promoting Bible studies have given WBS experience that has been documented in an easy-to-read format.

here are many ways that you can recruit your own students for your WBS Teachers. WBS Connect coordinators have access to ideas, best practices, and materials to launch and manage your

own promotional campaigns.

Program Details

T

Your WBS Connect Web Page

Everything you print, publish, or publicize will always refer to your WBS Connect web page address. This web page address is where interested responders will go to learn more and enroll for WBS lessons. You’ll choose your Connect web page address by choosing a name that has not already been chosen by another Connect program. WBS will activate your web page by prefixing your chosen name to worldbibleschool.org. For example, if you chose “discoverlife” as your web page name, your web page address would be discoverlife.worldbibleschool.org.

1. Keep your Connect web page name as short and memorable as possible. Keep it generic, too. As a rule of thumb, the more generic it is, the more likely someone will visit the site to learn more. For instance, do not use your church name. A web page name such as lifeanswers.worldbibleschool.org will have much greater success attracting visitors and, thus, enrolling students than centralchurchofchrist.worldbibleschool.org.

2. Your WBS Connect web page does not take the place of your church Web site (though you may want to link to it from your church site). The purpose of your church site is to get people to know about your church. The purpose of your WBS Connect web page is to convince responders that they should know more about God and the Bible, and to get them to enroll with WBS. They will learn of your church as they continue their studies.

Tips for choosing a web page name:

W O R L D B I B L E S C H O O L | C O N N E C T 5

WBS Web Ads

Where seekers will see the ad

WBS places ads on Google’s search result pages. When people in the area you target search for terms like “Bible study” or

“learn about Jesus”, a proportion of them will be shown your ad. Some people who see your ad will click it. When they do, they will be taken to a web page on worldbibleschool.org. Some people who visit that web page will register. When they do, they will be made available to your WBS Connect team for Bible study.

WBS Web Ads Pricing

WBS Web Ads are designed to fit most budgets, though we recommend starting with a budget of at least $100 per month over a four month period. Your budget is simply a maximum spending cap. You will only pay when your ad is clicked. If too few people click your ad, your budget will not be completely used. WBS calculates your total ad spending each month and adds 20% to pay for the infrastructure and overhead for the ad. Therefore, if your budget is $100 per month, $83.33 of that will be spent on ads and $16.67 will go to WBS (20% of $83.33 is $16.67 and $83.33 + $16.67 is $100).

At Home and Around the World

WBS Web Ads can work well to recruit students in your hometown. They are also an excellent way to “door knock” in another city in the U.S. or with your missionary in a city abroad. Many churches have special interests in specific places in the world because of existing missionaries, mission projects, follow up workers, local churches, or their concentration of present and past WBS students. They also have means to promote WBS in these places using local advertising media, campaign trips, their local network of contacts, or WBS Web Ads. Such churches use WBS Connect to help them target areas that complement their current missions interests and to involve their members first-hand.

All WBS Connect programs are eligible to use online advertising with WBS’ special service, “WBS Web Ads.” With WBS Web Ads, you can choose a specific location, set a budget, and be prepared to study with the students that register as a result of clicking your ad. WBS will maintain and manage the ads and costs for you.

6 W O R L D B I B L E S C H O O L | C O N N E C T

Postal TeachingThe WBS postal program allows teachers to study the Bible with seekers using printed, mailed materials. Teaching with WBS postal is an option available to WBS Connect coordinators. Some students prefer the printed lessons and/or do not have adequate access to the Internet (especially true with students in developing countries).

Internet Teaching

Your WBS Connect program can also teach through the Internet using either email or our website. While it is important to offer the potential WBS student the means of study that he/she may prefer, many WBS Connect churches choose to begin teaching using web lessons and adding email or postal as their program grows.

For more information about how teaching with WBS works, visit our “Become a Teacher” page on www.worldbibleschool.net

Strategy

Member Involvement

The most successful WBS Connect programs build interest and participation in WBS by their church members. The role of everyday Christians cannot be overstated. New Testament evangelism begins in the daily

lives of each believer. Each of us must live as light, demonstrate the love and grace of Jesus, serve those around us, and be real in our faith. We must be willing to share something meaningful with those around us.

Encourage your members to be proactive as WBS Teachers in your WBS Connect program. You don’t need a large team of WBS Teachers, but you do need a dedicated core of one or more individuals to get started.

WBS Teaching

W O R L D B I B L E S C H O O L | C O N N E C T 7

Leadership Commitment

To have a successful WBS Connect Program, your church leadership needs to be “on board”. WBS Connect takes planning, implementation, oversight, and finances to be effective.

WBS Coordinator(s)

It’s helpful to think of your WBS Connect Program efforts as two areas:

a) Student Recruiting – doing all the things necessary to proactively, consistently enroll WBS students.

b) Teaching – preparing WBS Study Helpers to be ready and able to teach new Bible students.

Both areas need someone focused on coordinating the efforts, the “WBS Coordinator.” The WBS Coordinator (perhaps with another designated church leader) should work with the church’s leadership to brainstorm, plan, and coordinate student recruiting—especially since such outreach efforts may overlap numerous church

ministries and programs, and require budgets, involvement planning, and implementation. The WBS Coordinator also should understand the WBS teaching methods the church is using, and should recruit and equip WBS teachers. Some churches have a separate “WBS Connect Coordinator” role for its targeted WBS Connect program and a “WBS Coordinator” for its traditional, worldwide teaching program.

Success Takes Time

WBS Connect is not an instant solution for evangelism. This program takes work, resources, and patience. Different types of promotion will produce different levels of response in different parts of the country and in different countries. Plus, the methods that might have been effective just a few years ago may be ineffective today. But with a sound, prayerful approach using WBS Connect, ultimately truth-seeking students will be baptized and added to the church.

Ideas: When you sign up for WBS Connect you will get ideas for …

• Personal Outreach with a combination of person-to-person and door-to-door efforts

• Advertising using newspapers, classifieds, special interest community publications, community events, billboards, and more

• Direct Mail using postcards, coupons, and special invitations that target specific neighborhoods and zip codes

• Church Outreach Programs to serve visitors, benevolence, community service projects, etc.

• WBS Web Ads, WBS’ helpful service for targeted online advertising

• And more.

8 W O R L D B I B L E S C H O O L | C O N N E C T

WBS Connect churches also will have access to creative, print-ready resources for both student recruiting and internal church publicity. Samples include handouts, posters, display ads, “business cards”, and others that can be found in the Exhibits section below. Each resource can be used as “original artwork” for printing purposes that you yourself must adapt. WBS does not adapt it for you. It can be edited by a professional printer or capable individual with desktop publishing or image editing software. Everything you print must include your WBS Connect web page address. The Exhibits show sample ads that must be edited with your information before they are printed or published.

Materials

Exhibit 1 – Display Ad Samples

Display Ads are intended for use in newspapers or other printed publications. World Bible School provides display ad templates that can be adapted for your local newspaper.

Here’s a look at the exhibits

REGISTER TODAY TO BEGIN LEARNING ABOUT THE EXTRAORDINARY WAYS THE BIBLE CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

OR EVER WANTED AN EASY, NO PRESSURE WAY TO FIND OUT WHAT

“GOD’S WORD” IS ALL ABOUT? LEARN ABOUT THE BIBLE BY MAIL OR ONLINE

— FOR FREE! LEARN IN YOUR HOME, AT YOUR PACE, WITH “PEN-PAL” HELPERS

AND ONLINE FRIENDS — WITH NO ONE KNOCKING ON YOUR DOOR.

example.WorldBibleSchool.orgREGISTER BY MAIL: SAMPLE CHURCH OF CHRIST, 1234 CHURCH LANE, SAMPLE, NY 05587 | REGISTER BY TEXT: SEND BIBLE TO 12345

W O R L D B I B L E S C H O O L | C O N N E C T 9

Exhibit 2 – WBS Handout Sample

Handouts are typically distributed at church outreach programs.

Exhibit 3 – WBS Poster Sample

LEARN MORE AT example.worldbibleschool.org

Learn how in the Bible by mail or online— for free!

Learn in your home, at your pace, with “pen-pal” helpers and online friends—with no one knocking on your door.

ARE YOU BEWILDERED AT ALL YOU HEAR

ABOUT “SPIRITUALITY”? LEARN FROM THE

BIBLE BY MAIL OR ONLINE—FOR FREE! LEARN

IN YOUR HOME, AT YOUR PACE, WITH“PEN-PAL”

HELPERS AND ONLINE FRIENDS—WITH NO

ONE KNOCKING ON YOUR DOOR.

LEARN MORE AT

example.worldbibleschool.org

10 W O R L D B I B L E S C H O O L | C O N N E C T

Materials

Exhibit 4 – WBS Connect “Business” Card Sample

Exhibit 5 – WBS Yard Sign Sample

Here’s a look at more exhibits

W O R L D B I B L E S C H O O L | C O N N E C T 11

EVERYDAY CHRISTIANS HERE ARE

WORLD BIBLE SCHOOL TEACHERS,

SHARING JESUS WITH THE WORLD.

WE NEED YOUR INVOLVEMENT.

PLEASE CONTACT BOB SMITH FOR MORE INFORMATION.

bob.smith@example.org555-234-5505

Exhibit 6 – WBS Involvement/Publicity Posters for Your Church Sample

www.worldbibleschool.netP.O. BOX 2169, CEDAR PARK, TX 78630

YOU. SHARING

JESUS.

YOU. SHARING

JESUS.connect@worldbibleschool.net

www.worldbibleschool.net/connect800-311-2006 · 512-345-8190