Hi Lee,
I think our small suburban church is at something like 3 a year, depending on the exact year. ;-)
But this is all God’s kindness, we’re not really exceptional.
A few factors:
* We have close ties with the North Epping community given the way Roger hosted the community counselling after the Lin family murders a year ago.
* We have also hosted many ‘non-evangelistic’ bridge building events over the last few years: say one every 6 months. North Epping is surrounded by the Pennant Hills Bush reserve. There’s only 1 road into the community, so we don’t get drive through traffic. It’s just us. Community events matter. Even if people don’t attend they take note that North Epping Anglican or “All Saints” has hosted ‘non-preachy’ events like parenting courses, counselling services, etc.
* The church camp each November is a community and relationship building time, with only the Sunday morning devoted to preaching. It’s about relationships. The gospel is definitely there, but it is in the lives of our members relating to each other: not dominating the program like a seminar. The weekend is clearly about relationships.
* We have a few really good evangelistic meetings during the year. One of the best was the ‘Men’s BBQ secrets’ night where the local gourmet butcher did a gourmet cooking night mixed with a butchery demonstration. The front of the church looked like we were going Old Testament. A cow was split in 2, we hung the halves of the cow out the front, on the left and right of the stage. We also had a beer tasting test with paper work to fill out and small sample cups of beer coming out. We had to guess the beer, describe the taste, and then label it in preference. They were only small shots of beer, but the point was that we had about 8 of them, and then received a whole glass of our favourite beer at the end. (Total of about 2 beers over the whole evening).
* This BBQ night was CLEARLY advertised as having a 20 minute gospel talk in it, and cost about $20 to attend. Community members PAID to turn up and hear the gospel! This was partly out of respect for our great butcher, and partly out of respect for All Saints church and all we have done.
* We also get transfer growth, but off the top of my head I can think of a few couples who have become Christians in the last few years.
* Growth has tapered off due to the fact that our 9:45 family service is pretty well ‘full’. So we’re now trying to split about half the 9:45 family service off to join the previous 8am prayer book service. The times are being rejigged as well. This means from here on in families have to commit to either the new 9am service or new 10:30 service. It is a big change, and many of us will be pushed out of our comfort zones and have to help out with running 2 creche’s, 2 Sunday schools, and 2 family services rather than just 1 family service (and 1 tiny, sleepy, 8am prayer book service).
All I can say Lee is if there’s a good strategy spelt out on the Sola panel, try that. If your church circumstances change, try something else. The important thing about a strategy is to have one. It doesn’t really matter which one. As long as you are biblically faithful and true to the gospel, and trying to serve the needs of your congregation and community, God will do the rest. Trust in Him, not the strategy. The risk is serving GROWTH not the gospel. We don’t want that. Don’t adopt that American mindset that ‘bigger is always, always better’. It depends on the cost. Having debated you on greenie stuff in other threads, I get the impression you’re concerned for the gospel and won’t fall into that mistake though.
(PS: You could always come back into the peak oil thread and have a go at answering the top 10 questions challenge I’ve left for you. ;-)
RSS Feed