Toolbox For Faith

Few things are more exciting to me as a pastor than the sight of someone walking over and introducing themselves to a new worshiper. While I know that the ability to walk up to a stranger and say “Hello” is a gift that not everyone possesses, I believe that most people are happy to engage new worshipers in conversation if they are introduced by a trusted friend.

At times, if folks happen to be walking out of church at the same time, I am able to make appropriate introductions, but at other times, two people, who might make a solid connection, wander off before I am done shaking hands. With that in mind, I think our congregation needs to recruit a beloved member of our congregational family to be the “Designated Introducer.” The Designated Introducer will look for new worshipers, engage them in a brief conversation and then introduce them to someone in the congregation with similar characteristics. Like a gracious host at a party, the Designated Introducer’s goal will be to create a climate of hospitality and help new worshipers and long-time worshipers discover each other.

Each year in the Christmas Eve bulletins, we do a bulletin insert which highlights ministries that might be of interest to new worshipers. This year we are focusing on three of our strengths: youth ministry, music ministry and helping ministries. The secondary purpose of the insert is to lift up and celebrate those strengths for the regular worshipers. If you would like to see an example of the insert, you can find it here.

Most churches do some sort of advertising at Christmas. This year, I am adding advertising on Facebook to our toolbox. Here’s a link to an article on a church communication website that provides details on how to create and place a Facebook ad. The article also includes a coupon code for $50 in free advertising. I followed the steps outlined in the article and used the coupon to create a targeted ad that will run in the days leading up to Christmas. We’ll see how it goes.

http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/2010/11/facebook-ads-for-your-church/

When we have attended different churches and were welcomed—although we have discovered that is not a given—we have been called visitors. I’m lobbying for a change in wording from visitor to guest. I first heard the suggestion from Ken Callahan but I did not realize the impact to the individual until I started attending different churches.

I checked with Webster’s dictionary for the difference between the two words before I started my lobbying campaign to make sure I was defining the words correctly. The first two definitions of guest were “a: a person entertained in one’s house b: a person to whom hospitality is extended..” The first definition of visitor is “one that visits; especially: one that makes formal visits of inspection.”

Being a guest who has been invited and warmly welcomed is exciting. We are not people who have just dropped in off the street to make a formal inspection of the church. I do not expect to be entertained but I want to feel like I am a part of the community of believers, not someone who is outside looking critically in. Maybe, if we concentrate of thinking of people as guests, we will welcome them in a much warmer way. That could be wishful thinking but I’m hopeful.

How about joining my campaign? Let’s eliminate visitors and welcome guests.

I saw this idea in an email from the South Carolina Synod. It seemed like a great idea, so I wanted to pass it along.

First Lutheran Church in Greensboro, NC, encourages churches of all sizes to participate in “Meals at the Manger,” a simple and effective way to generate thousands of pounds of food for hunger-fighting agencies.

FLC invites people to bring a can (or more!) to Christmas Eve services and put the items in a manger, surrounded by boxes from a local agency. Donations have totaled about 3,300 pounds of food through the church in the past two years. The collection area also provided a point of conversation as people were greeted and the gathering of food offered a meaningful way to teach children about sharing and putting God’s love into action. After the services, items were moved inside and picked up by the agency later.

Many years ago at a workshop, Lyle Schaller suggested a question that I have found invaluable over the years. He said always ask, “What year is it?’ when analyzing why certain actions occur in a parish. That question has helped me enormously in understanding the congregations I have served and it have been central in planning a strategy for that congregation to grow forward in faith and service.

When I have thought of this question at the congregations where my wife, Cheryl, and I have been worshipping over the past weeks, the results are puzzling. The congregations appear to have asked the question “What year is it?” in mission outreach but have stopped there. All of the congregations have looked at their communities today and appear to have a wonderful understanding of needed 2010 outreach into their communities. But in most other areas, they have taught me that they are using ideas that haven’t been useful since our society was a church culture in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

I am still attempting to figure out why this has happened—that only the mission outreach is 2010 and so much of the remainder of the congregational life is lost in the past. Perhaps it is due to the current recession that has caused so much change in the lives of many, many people but I am not sure. Please let me know if you have any brilliant or even semi-brilliant explanations.