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Sponsored by The Evangelism Committee of The Presbytery of Los Ranchos Updated April 19, 2006 |
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Creative Ideas and Helpful Resources Archive This page contains mostly recent additions to our list of Creative Ideas and Helpful Resources. For our archive of previous submissions, click here. |
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Effective Outreach . . . and Fun! Submitted by Chris Logan Community Presbyterian Church in North Long Beach has a great way of getting their neighbors to church. On Halloween night they transform their Fellowship Hall into a place of safe fun for people from the community. Check out these pictures from the latest Halloween party:
Church of the Resurrection, Kansas City
We usually show a short video promo for the January sermon series. We will also have a postcard that advertises the upcoming sermons. If the series of sermons is enticing to the unchurched, we will see a significant increase in January over our prior year's attendance. We call these January sermon series fishing expeditions, drawing from Jesus' invitation to the first disciples to become fishers of people. Our aim is to cast out the net on Christmas Eve when the largest number of nonreligious and nominally religious people are present in our worship, and try to encourage them to return for worship after the holidays. Examples of the fishing expedition series of sermons are: Most Frequently Asked Questions; Controversial Issues; The Problem of Evil; Love, Marriage, and Sex.
From Unleashing the Word by Adam Hamilton, Pastor, Church of the Resurrection (thanks to Tom Dykhuizen for sending this in). Churches Partnering for Evangelism The November "Evangelism Connection" newsletter published by the Los Ranchos Evangelism Committee encouraged churches to join together for more effective evangelism. Specific examples included:
As you think about how to reach your community for Christ, don't forget that your church is not alone. You've got lots of partners nearby, the other churches in our Presbytery. Submitted by Mark D. Roberts, Pastor, Irvine PC If we want our churches to be truly welcoming – which we all do, I expect – then we need to put ourselves in the shoes of folk who visit our churches. We need to wear visiting shoes, as it were. This is both crucial and harder than you may think, because we who are comfortable in our own churches may forget what it's like to be new and unfamiliar. A task force has recently formed in Irvine Presbyterian Church. The call themselves the "Outreach Task Force." Their goal is to help us reach out more effectively to our neighbors. One of the first things the Outreach Task Force did was to think about how visitors experience our church. They came up with some interesting insights, and one led to a very practical and significant improvement in our ability to make our guests feel at home. For years we have a "Welcome Booth" on the church patio, a place where visitors can receive a hearty handshake and get helpful answers to questions like: Where do I take my six-year-old now? Or, where are the bathrooms? The Welcome Booth, and the lay people who have staffed it, have done great work over the years.
Could that be Pastor Tim Avazian waving at you? But, our Outreach Task Force identified a major weakness in our Welcome Booth strategy. We had one welcome booth on the patio, the center of our church campus, but two main entrances to the patio itself. The Welcome Booth, which needed to be on one side or the other, was wonderfully helpful to guests who parked on the south side of the church, but virtually useless to those who parked on the north side. This meant that about half of our visitors were not receiving the welcome he had intended. How did the Outreach Task Force come to this conclusion, which, is rather obvious is you think about it, but was not considered by our leaders for over a decade! One many on the Task Force kept his eyes open on a Sunday morning. He saw guests arriving, with no help about where to go or what to do. He realized the flaw in our welcoming strategy, and brought it to the group. The Outreach Task Force decided to solve the problem PDQ. They recruited a man in the church who is skilled in carpentry. They got together enough money for materials (not all that much, really). They organized a work day. And they built a new booth. Then they put organized the staffing for the new booth. The net result: Now visitor to our church campus will be welcomed, no matter where they park. We've already seen the impact of this addition to our welcoming strategy, in only two weeks of having both Welcome Booths in operation.
Your church may not need two booths. And, then again, it may need four. Or one may be fine. My point isn't to sell a certain number of booths so much as to encourage you and your people to think carefully and creatively about how visitors experience your church. You could be really bold and ask some visitors about their experiences: What was helpful? What was confusing? What could we do better? You may be surprised by what you'd hear.
Danny Chapelseed's "Seedsower" Ministry 5/20/05 To find out more about Danny Chapelseed's "Seedsower" outreach ministry, click here.
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The Da Vinci Opportunity: How the Popularity of The Da Vinci Code Book and Movie Can Be Helpful to Christians and Others. This series of articles is from the website of Mark D. Roberts, pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church. The movie will be released in May 2006 and will have the press and our neighbors buzzing. These articles help us understand many issues raised by the movie. Even more they help us think about how to use this movie release as an opportunity to share intelligently about Jesus and the historical truths of the gospel stories. These articles will help you prepare for the film's release. They will also help you respond to the challenges raised by the film. - posted by Steve Yamaguchi, 4/19/06 The Evangelism and Witness program area of our denomination publishes a quarterly newsletter with lots of helpful information for evangelism. It's called, appropriately enough, Good News.
The most recent issue of Good News contains some fascinating information about what distinguishes growing PCUSA churches from those that aren't growing. Evangelism Connections Website The Office of Evangelism of the PCUSA has a new and very helpful website. It's called "From the Field, For the Field." This page is a collection of great evangelism ideas, gathered from a variety of churches and denominations. It's well worth a visit on a regular basis. You can also send in some of your best evangelism ideas.
Change Without Compromise is a conference sponsored by NorthRidge Church, in Plymouth, Michigan. Here's their description of the conference:
The NorthRidge Church was a dying older church that has experienced a stunning turnaround. It's now one of the fastest growing churches in America. The conference will be held on February 9-11, 2006. For more info, check the NorthRidge website.
November 2-5, 2005, San Diego, California
Narnia:
Resources for the "Smart Christian"
"What is the Gospel?" Great Online Articles
Contains materials from a large number of respected evangelistic organizations. Something for everyone here. Well worth checking out by clicking here. |
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If you want to submit ideas for this website, please contact Mark D. Roberts. |
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