Reaching Out In The Burbs
I have been at Meadowood for 13 months now. I am involved with a bowling league, and have become a household name at Elkhart Hospital and Valley View Nursing Home. All of the girls at the counter and the manager of 7-11 know who I am. The owner of Sunrise Canyon Coffee knows who I am. Yet, I feel like my feet havent even touched the ground as I try to set my roots into this community. Leith Anderson and Gene Wood have told me in their books about church turnaround that it will take me 5 years to get started planting my roots. Wow!
I love living in the suburbs. I have been raised in the burbs my whole life. It's my natural habitat. I love the fact that I dont have to travel more than 3 miles to get to the nearest grocery store, gas station, coffee house, or golf course.
I love the ethnical diversity of living in the burbs. There has been many occassions where I find myself as a minority as I cruise up and down the aisles of Meijers, Target, or Lowe's. I love it.
I love that my town hosts a jazz festival.
I love going to the park at night and watching movies under the stars.
I love walking through my subdivision in the early evening.
I love the fact that I can get to downtown Chicago in two hours and make a day of it.
While I love living in the burbs, outreach in the burbs is slightly tougher than living in a small town or rural areas. My subdivision and surrounding subdivisions gets its fair share of door to door salesmen weekly. We have churches like Cananda has donut shops: One on every corner. I am finding out that very few just walk in off the street to give our church a try. Hence, it means more effort than a sermon and a band.
Now, this year we have gained two families off the street. Both families found us on the web. The first family has a ministry background and were looking for a Free Methodist Church. They found us through our denominational web site and has been a blessing to us ever since. The other family was a couple looking to get married and wanted to know more about our church before giving us a try and looked up our web site. Thankfully, it won them over. So people walking in off the street can work, its a very slow form of growth though.
Last week we had our Vacation Bible School. It's been a couple of years since our church has held one. We had 30 children come out for it. 29 of them has never been here before. Awesome. We passed out flyers everywhere we could. We advertised it on our sign for a month. It was advertised on our web site. One thing I can tell you is that all of the children who came, did so because someone invited them. 18 of those children came because of an elderly lady named Rosemary Lands, and an active 8 year old Emily Dollinger invited them. 6 of the children were regular with us while they invited 24 others to join us.
I have been taught in my evangelism class that a Barna Poll showed that 96% of people who come to church, do so because someone invited them. That means only 4% show up because of a program, special event, or because they saw something on the sign. I believe that to be true.
One of our Bishops mentioned that it takes 84 people to lead one person. When I heard that, I was shocked. I thought we were supposed to do silly things as pastors like getting pied in the face, or preach from a rooftop so that people could come in and hear about how Jesus changed our lives and he could change yours too, and then everyone is saved and happy. I felt overwhelmed and inadequate. So I have been praying that God would surround me with 83 Godly people to assist me in reaching one.
But here is what I have found. People dont care how much you know, until they know how much you care. It's about authentic relationships. It's about a personal touch. It's about proper confrontation. It's about relationships. Didnt I just say that?
Why relationships? Because our God wants a relationship with us. It has been His desire and joy since the beginning of time. My goal at Meadowood is that we build life giving relationships with those who are living away from Jesus. Our only agenda is the carry out the basic command of loving God and loving others. We are not focusing on numbers, but trying to figure out how to be the best church we could possibly be.
Building that church will not come with a fancy program, but authentic relevant teaching and worship is a huge plus. I am convinced that through strong community that loves others and desires to add to their numbers regularly (Acts 2:42) will show the world Imago Dei, the likeness of God.
Pray that we do it right. Jesus changed my life, I know He WILL change yours for the better too.
I love living in the suburbs. I have been raised in the burbs my whole life. It's my natural habitat. I love the fact that I dont have to travel more than 3 miles to get to the nearest grocery store, gas station, coffee house, or golf course.
I love the ethnical diversity of living in the burbs. There has been many occassions where I find myself as a minority as I cruise up and down the aisles of Meijers, Target, or Lowe's. I love it.
I love that my town hosts a jazz festival.
I love going to the park at night and watching movies under the stars.
I love walking through my subdivision in the early evening.
I love the fact that I can get to downtown Chicago in two hours and make a day of it.
While I love living in the burbs, outreach in the burbs is slightly tougher than living in a small town or rural areas. My subdivision and surrounding subdivisions gets its fair share of door to door salesmen weekly. We have churches like Cananda has donut shops: One on every corner. I am finding out that very few just walk in off the street to give our church a try. Hence, it means more effort than a sermon and a band.
Now, this year we have gained two families off the street. Both families found us on the web. The first family has a ministry background and were looking for a Free Methodist Church. They found us through our denominational web site and has been a blessing to us ever since. The other family was a couple looking to get married and wanted to know more about our church before giving us a try and looked up our web site. Thankfully, it won them over. So people walking in off the street can work, its a very slow form of growth though.
Last week we had our Vacation Bible School. It's been a couple of years since our church has held one. We had 30 children come out for it. 29 of them has never been here before. Awesome. We passed out flyers everywhere we could. We advertised it on our sign for a month. It was advertised on our web site. One thing I can tell you is that all of the children who came, did so because someone invited them. 18 of those children came because of an elderly lady named Rosemary Lands, and an active 8 year old Emily Dollinger invited them. 6 of the children were regular with us while they invited 24 others to join us.
I have been taught in my evangelism class that a Barna Poll showed that 96% of people who come to church, do so because someone invited them. That means only 4% show up because of a program, special event, or because they saw something on the sign. I believe that to be true.
One of our Bishops mentioned that it takes 84 people to lead one person. When I heard that, I was shocked. I thought we were supposed to do silly things as pastors like getting pied in the face, or preach from a rooftop so that people could come in and hear about how Jesus changed our lives and he could change yours too, and then everyone is saved and happy. I felt overwhelmed and inadequate. So I have been praying that God would surround me with 83 Godly people to assist me in reaching one.
But here is what I have found. People dont care how much you know, until they know how much you care. It's about authentic relationships. It's about a personal touch. It's about proper confrontation. It's about relationships. Didnt I just say that?
Why relationships? Because our God wants a relationship with us. It has been His desire and joy since the beginning of time. My goal at Meadowood is that we build life giving relationships with those who are living away from Jesus. Our only agenda is the carry out the basic command of loving God and loving others. We are not focusing on numbers, but trying to figure out how to be the best church we could possibly be.
Building that church will not come with a fancy program, but authentic relevant teaching and worship is a huge plus. I am convinced that through strong community that loves others and desires to add to their numbers regularly (Acts 2:42) will show the world Imago Dei, the likeness of God.
Pray that we do it right. Jesus changed my life, I know He WILL change yours for the better too.
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