I'm praying this week about new ways to reach people for Jesus. Tweaking our worship won't reach new people. It will reach the people who are here and folks that will come to "regular church".
My son-in-law is on staff of a church that does video worship in movie theaters and coffee houses. Maybe a coffee house in Bowie? What about video taping our worship and setting up a worship setting in a place at the Town Center on a Saturday night or another day/time?
What about setting up a tent and sending a team to the Bowie Soccer Fields on Sunday mornings?
How about some Saturday night street ministry at "The Pond" or at the Bowie Town Center?
What about a tent revival service during StreetReach or throughout the summer?
I wish it were clear where God would have us walk...
Any thoughts?
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At my old church (First Baptist of Glenarden) they would hold a Tent Revival with lots of music, worship, and high energy preaching from a variety of guests. It took place over the course of 3 days and was highly publisized. Maybe we can have street reach teams, members, and other volunteers pass out fliers around the community. We could also see if businesses in the community would allow us to leave fliers and set up a tent outside to let people know about the events and what we will have.
I'm just throwing ideas out, but I think that would be a good thing.
People don't want programs, they want connections.
Folks don't go to a bar because of a program, its because that's where their friends hang out!
If you approach this like another program, then you will attract those folks who respond to programs, i.e. church folks.
If you are trying to reach people, then reach out to them without an agenda, but just to reach out to them.
You might want to take a page out of StreetReach's book, they are reaching out to people that need help just because they need help. Extend love, and you will get a response. Extend a program or an agenda, and you may get numbers, but not necessarily responses.
Anonymous 11:06 am, I'm not sure why you think I am suggesting programs only...
I think suggesting going to the park on Sunday is reaching people where they are and trying to build relationships. The same with going to "The Pond" and "Bowie Town Center". We might have suggested a form of worship be part of our going to these places, but, we would certainly be building relationships with people who are not coming to our church - at least not on that given Sunday.
I can see the value in "simply" building relationships - we should all be doing that everyday as Christians - I try.
StreetReach is an awesome ministry that youth and adults from Mt. Oak are doing regularly. We're even talking about taking a Saturday or a Sunday morning and taking the whole church out to do StreetReach.
Just not sure why you don't see value in trying to reach people outside the church with opportunities to worship God!
"Just not sure why you don't see value in trying to reach people outside the church with opportunities to worship God!"
Because from your statement above, you are making the assumption that people may want to worship God, but just don't want to go to a church to do it.
If the church is trying to reach people to point them to Jesus, that is one thing, but to reach people outside of the church with opportunities to worship God sounds like a public singalong. You will find those who want to take part in the program, and you will find those who don't.
It can't be about a program.
So instead of what it isn't - how about what it should be - IYHO.
It should be about reaching out to people without precondition.
The church is very good at reaching out to those who "fit in". Who reaches out to those who don't? Who reaches out to the marginalized, the outcasts, those who don't think/talk/act/walk like the rest of us?
People like conformity, and will therefore gravitate to those who conform with their own ideologies.
But Jesus was never about conforming.
He was about bringing good news to captives. Those enslaved physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, whatever-the-"lly", Jesus came to speak life into their situation, to offer them a different future;
He was about bringing recovery of sight to the blind, opening up a new vista to those who were physically, emotionally, psychologically, whatever-the-"lly" afflicted;
He was about setting free the oppressed, those oppressed by their past, by how they are regarded boy those around them, by the wider community, by social stigma; these are the ones that Jesus came to set free;
He was about proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor. His message was one of inclusion in God's sight, not one of exclusion in God's family due to personal. political, ideological, whatever-sort-of-"al" differences that those who call themselves members of God's family can latch onto in order to divide or segregate.
Churches don't need programs to reach people, churches need friends and neighbors to be friends and neighbors to those who don't go to church. Talk to people. Listen to them. Hang out with them. Don't judge them, don't look for glib answers, don't try to change them, just love them, befriend them, walk with them. Let your witness in the moments without words do the talking.
That, in my honest opinion, (I guess that's what you meant by IMHO) is what it should be.
Anonymous is soooo right! Thanks for taking my thoughts and putting them on paper--Lorie Lowery
How about an old-fashioned down-to-the-river baptism? I can picture a full-immersion, in-the-river,hallelujah and praise God moment!
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