Times Square Church - Case Study

Background

Times Square Church is an interdenominational, multinational congregation, located in the heart of Times Square in New York City, founded by the Rev. David Wilkerson. Times square Church’s congregation represents over 100 different nationalities that gather to worship together each week in New York City and online.

Throughout his time in ministry, Pastor Carter has felt a mandate of the Lord to call the nation to prayer and proposed an idea to Jungle Communications to gather people of all ages, race, cultures, and background to pray for one hour for our city, nation, and world in Times Square.

From this idea a 3-year annual event, “Prayer In The Square” was born and Jungle Communications was tasked with making their vision a reality.

YEAR 1

10,000

IN ATTENDANCE

YEAR 2

20,000

IN ATTENDANCE

YEAR 3

50,000

IN ATTENDANCE

Goals

To gather a diverse group of everyday people to pray for 1 hour in Times Square 100 churches to become hubs of prayer
Obey the voice of God
Live gospel choir

CHALLENGES

Acquiring a permit to hold the events in Times Square
Acquiring a Mayor proclamation
Acquiring a building permit for a large stage

Strategy

Early on we applied for all permits and proclamations to ensure the event would be approved for the date in mind. With our creative marketing team, we designed the logo and concept for all marketing and advertising materials to ensure a consistent brand message across all platforms.

To kickstart the next 3 years we started with designing and developing a website to house event details, and ways for other churches to participate as well as designing web banner ads.

Each year the extent of our marketing and advertising efforts grew starting with mainly fliers (in English, Spanish and Korean), posters, stage banners, shirts, billboards, subway ads and an extensive radio advertising campaign. On top of this the following years included an email campaign, promotional materials like newsletter inserts, bookmarks, and postcards, newspaper ads, bus ads, TV appearances, social media advertising and considerable PR.

Each year the event was equipped with an astrovision screen and was live broadcasted on multiple websites, and radio stations so people from all over the world could tune in. Video spots were then created by our video production team to use in future promotional videos.

Results

This phenomenon grew from 10,000 in attendance, to 20,000 to 50,000 each consecutive year, according to the NYPD. In total, 200 churches representing multiple denominations came together to participate in this event including churches in 20 countries around the world who joined via live broadcast. Pastor Conlon and the 180-voice gospel choir led this event that was attended by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, as he declared that Sunday as Prayer in the Square Day.

Through the overwhelming response to Prayer in the Square, Pastor Conlon introduced two new ministries. The first, Feed New York, an initiative that provides food assistance to thousands of hungry New Yorkers through 100 local church partnerships throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The second is the Worldwide Prayer Meeting which is live-streamed once a week with thousands of Christians gathering to pray at Times Square Church, either attending in person or by participating through live streaming. This powerful service welcomes interactive involvement and has online participants in more than 200 countries.