Mission anyone?

[karen freeinchristman]

Specifically community outreach and local mission: what has been your churches experience with mission/outreach events?

What types of events have you tried; what 'worked' and what didn't work?
What tips can you give to others hoping to engage in local outreach or mission?


I'll start:
We have only had one mission event in the past 3 years! :sigh: It was a youth event, with a christian magician and lots of food and music. We advertised it to our youth club (mixed, but mainly non-churched aged 9-15), and asked them to invite friends. About 50 kids came. It went really well, and it brought the church together in terms of the planning that it took. However, I'm not sure of the impact it had. We had a follow-up 7 week christian basics course, attended by only 6 young people, so I thought that not too good. But we never know what seeds are planted, and when they will germinate, do we? Hopefully we will do some more outreach in the near future.

[Naomi4Christ]

We have a fair bit of local mission work:

A Saturday football league to provide an alternative to Sunday football for our own children and to give them a chance to invite their friends to both this and Saturday Pathfinders. We get about 50:50 church/non-church children and they tend to invite their parents to family services (such as this weeks' Harvest).

A craft club for Explorers age - again, friends inviting friends with invitations to special services.

A parenting course run in conjunction with Health Visitors (personally, I would like to start the HTB parenting course). We've also had Rob Parsons.

The Marriage Course

Alpha, of course, and we are also about to have a Jonathan Aitken evening.

We have events specifically targeted at the old folks - community songs of praise, which attracts mostly the unchurched who are requesting hymns from their school days 60 years earlier.

Advent/Easter evenings for women - what's it all about?

Student lunches

Parent and toddler group, which attracts mostly the unchurched and we get 2 or 3 families a year joining the church from this.

Rainbows/brownies/guides and scouts

We have plans this year to go into local schools to do assemblies. We already support a youth worker in the local secondary school, and are active on governing bodies of local primary, secondary and independent schools.

Phew!

[Wigglesworth]

My church has a pig roast every year in July. It's on a Sunday after our 11:00 worship service. It is a gift to the community. The church contracts a caterer to do the pig, a team is designated to roast corn on the cob, and the church regulars bring foil pans of food that are set out in a buffet line. This year, a worship team from another church played music for a while. One person actually does professional massages for free and sets up her tables on the porch of our administration building.

It is open to the public and free of charge. Hundreds of people attend for the food and fellowship. It's a great time to invite people to church who don't normally attend.

:)

[SirTimothy]

Hmm... St H's does very little, but we join with other local churches. LCC, the church my parents is involved with, runs Alpha, in partnership with St. H's, we also run a youth group in partnership with them and the other local churches, I'm involved with LCC's student outreach and children's work as well. A fair bit. St H's used to run a friday club for kids, but I'm not sure if we are this year...

Timothy

[karen freeinchristman]

Nice to hear the replies so far, thanks! :clap:

I guess I didn't think that our youth club counted. It is outreach, for sure, attracting more non-churched than churced kids. But we don't have any christian message there, only christian presence through the leaders. But that is still a type of message, I guess! :)

In what ways are we giving the message (i.e. the gospel) as a local church,
to un-churched people in our communities? Do we feel we need to improve in this area? (I feel strongly that we do.)

[ChessCastle]

I'll have to wait until I've been around my parish a bit longer before answering this question but can someone explain 'Alpha'? I keep seeing this term and its not included in the episcopalian terminology link somone gave me.

CC

[Naomi4Christ]

Nice to hear the replies so far, thanks! :clap:

I guess I didn't think that our youth club counted. It is outreach, for sure, attracting more non-churched than churced kids. But we don't have any christian message there, only christian presence through the leaders. But that is still a type of message, I guess! :)

In what ways are we giving the message (i.e. the gospel) as a local church,
to un-churched people in our communities? Do we feel we need to improve in this area? (I feel strongly that we do.)

We don't hammer home a Christian message to the un-churched. We reach them through friendship and hospitality, and then invite them to a more Christian event (usually a church service). For example, we invite 11-14 year olds to football and netball on Saturday mornings, and then invite them to Saturday Pathfinders in the evening where they do a variety of fun activities. They always take away leaflets advertising our special services, but also get personal invites to come every Sunday and to bring their parents. We have found that it works - 2 or 3 families might start coming to church as a result of their child's secular involvement.

There is plenty of research to suggest that people start coming to church and keep coming to church because they make friends there. It's vitally important to have a warm and caring environment, and to get to know people as individuals, meeting them where they are.

Where families are involved, it's really important to appeal to the children because if they don't like it, parents won't drag them along.

[Naomi4Christ]

I'll have to wait until I've been around my parish a bit longer before answering this question but can someone explain 'Alpha'? I keep seeing this term and its not included in the episcopalian terminology link somone gave me.

CC

http://uk.alpha.org/site_assets/logos/alpha_logo_2002_w50.gif

Alpha is an introducation to Christianity course - it is the most fantastic evangelical tool. The course was developed by the famous London Church, Holy Trinity Brompton and championed by the now vicar, Nicky Gumbel. It's a 10-week course and it involves a meal (no talking about churchy things), a talk, and a small group discussion.

You can read all about it Alpha Course (http://www.alphacourse.org/)

We are launching our Alpha course next week, and are expecting 200 at the Alpha Supper. It's a huge task but so rewarding.

[ChessCastle]

http://uk.alpha.org/site_assets/logos/alpha_logo_2002_w50.gif

Alpha is an introducation to Christianity course - it is the most fantastic evangelical tool. The course was developed by the famous London Church, Holy Trinity Brompton and championed by the now vicar, Nicky Gumbel. It's a 10-week course and it involves a meal (no talking about churchy things), a talk, and a small group discussion.

You can read all about it Alpha Course (http://www.alphacourse.org/)

We are launching our Alpha course next week, and are expecting 200 at the Alpha Supper. It's a huge task but so rewarding.

Mystery solved. Thanks :thumbsup:

[karen freeinchristman]

There is plenty of research to suggest that people start coming to church and keep coming to church because they make friends there. It's vitally important to have a warm and caring environment, and to get to know people as individuals, meeting them where they are.

I believe it is part of outreach, in a way, to make church as welcoming as possible as described above by Dogsbody.

My church attracts new people, but they often don't stay. How can I help my church to become more welcoming and more warm? It seems people know that is how it should be, but it doesn't always happen in reality. I think it would be a good idea to form a welcoming committee (yes, another committee, but an important one!) Do any of you have this?

(I wasn't sure whether to start a new thread with this question, but decided against it.)

[Naomi4Christ]

I believe it is part of outreach, in a way, to make church as welcoming as possible as described above by Dogsbody.

My church attracts new people, but they often don't stay. How can I help my church to become more welcoming and more warm? It seems people know that is how it should be, but it doesn't always happen in reality. I think it would be a good idea to form a welcoming committee (yes, another committee, but an important one!) Do any of you have this?

(I wasn't sure whether to start a new thread with this question, but decided against it.)

We have a very good welcoming committee and they do seem to spot newcomers. We also have Welcome Cards in the chairs, and the vicar always points these out at the start of each service. Saying that, it is the duty of everyone to be friendly - to chat to those sitting near you before the start of the service and invite their children to children's groups at the appropriate time. Personally, I am rubbish at saying hello to newcomers and I am so busy at coffee time with church 'business' (it's the only time you get to see everyone you need to see in one place). I like to get to know newcomers at small events, such as our parent and toddler group.

We've found that if you want to involve newcomers in the life of the church, you have to ask them directly - you can't rely on notices and handouts. It's hard work, but no one said the Christian life would be an easy one. :)

There's research to say that when a congregation gets to be 80% full, it fails to be welcoming to new people, and it's then time to plant a new congregation.

There can be issues with your church building (is it comfortable, can people get in easily, can they see and hear what is going on?) and your service (do you have to be an Anglican insider to understand what is going on, are your songs/hymns 'singable' to those who were turned down for the school choir?) These kind of things may be worth talking through with a Diocesan Advisor - it's what you pay your share for.

[karen freeinchristman]

We have a very good welcoming committee and they do seem to spot newcomers. We also have Welcome Cards in the chairs, and the vicar always points these out at the start of each service. Saying that, it is the duty of everyone to be friendly - to chat to those sitting near you before the start of the service and invite their children to children's groups at the appropriate time. Personally, I am rubbish at saying hello to newcomers and I am so busy at coffee time with church 'business' (it's the only time you get to see everyone you need to see in one place). I like to get to know newcomers at small events, such as our parent and toddler group.

We've found that if you want to involve newcomers in the life of the church, you have to ask them directly - you can't rely on notices and handouts. It's hard work, but no one said the Christian life would be an easy one. :)

There's research to say that when a congregation gets to be 80% full, it fails to be welcoming to new people, and it's then time to plant a new congregation.

There can be issues with your church building (is it comfortable, can people get in easily, can they see and hear what is going on?) and your service (do you have to be an Anglican insider to understand what is going on, are your songs/hymns 'singable' to those who were turned down for the school choir?) These kind of things may be worth talking through with a Diocesan Advisor - it's what you pay your share for.
thanks for that, Dogsbody, gives me lots to think/pray/talk with others about.

[Eby]

About 8 weeks ago all the churches in my local area joined together to organise and take part in something called 'the Reach Out Mission' which is where we all went out into the town and ran free projects for people in the day (like dance and music workshops) and then had free gigs, quizzes and a free cafe in the evening. We usually do something on a much smaller scale called 'the Noise' but after doing a BIG event in London a year before called 'Soul in the City' we decided to try something bigger. Anyhow it was absolutely amazing! We had such a good response! We weren't trying to force God and Christianity on people we were just showing Gods love through simple actions and outreach in the community. A lot of people were really interested in what we were doing (which is when we did start to talk about God and his love) and I know there was at least one person who gave their lives to God as a result of the mission. Even now - 8 weeks later we have people writing into our local newspaper still praising the event and saying about how much they enjoyed it. It was the first time as a town that all the churches decided to join together and try something so big but it was completely worth it. We've already decided to repeat the event in a couple of years time and I still can't get over the great responce we had during the event and the impact it had on our community. :clap:
(I'll stop talking now 'cause I think I'm starting to ramble.)

[karen freeinchristman]

About 8 weeks ago all the churches in my local area joined together to organise and take part in something called 'the Reach Out Mission' which is where we all went out into the town and ran free projects for people in the day (like dance and music workshops) and then had free gigs, quizzes and a free cafe in the evening. We usually do something on a much smaller scale called 'the Noise' but after doing a BIG event in London a year before called 'Soul in the City' we decided to try something bigger. Anyhow it was absolutely amazing! We had such a good response! We weren't trying to force God and Christianity on people we were just showing Gods love through simple actions and outreach in the community. A lot of people were really interested in what we were doing (which is when we did start to talk about God and his love) and I know there was at least one person who gave their lives to God as a result of the mission. Even now - 8 weeks later we have people writing into our local newspaper still praising the event and saying about how much they enjoyed it. It was the first time as a town that all the churches decided to join together and try something so big but it was completely worth it. We've already decided to repeat the event in a couple of years time and I still can't get over the great responce we had during the event and the impact it had on our community. :clap:
(I'll stop talking now 'cause I think I'm starting to ramble.)
Wow! that sounds like it was awesome. thanks for sharing that, Eby. Your enthusiasm is infectious! :)

[Fish and Bread]

Specifically community outreach and local mission: what has been your churches experience with mission/outreach events?

Alpha was very successful at the parish I held my membership at before my move (Actually, I technically still hold my membership there, as I haven't formally transferred it to a parish near my new home yet -- I'm still evaluating). I found Nicky Gumbel's tapes and the program itself to be a very good experience, filled with humor and so forth, and without anything that would be a turnoff to an unchurched person. Of course, Father Nicky is clearly on the evangelical conservative side of Anglicanism, so I didn't agree with everything, but by and large it did an excellent job of conveying the basics of the Christian faith in a fun and community oriented way. He has quite the sense of humor. One of my sisters attended an Alpha held at her Roman Catholic parish and enjoyed it as well, even though she and I have markedly different theological perspectives. It's also kind of a proud moment to have a Church of England priest's perspectives be taught in so many different types of Christian churches.

I'm told Via Media is a good more specifically Episcopalian course along the same lines, with a less conservative less evangelical perspective. I haven't found a Via Media course to participate in yet, though, so I don't have a personal opinion yet. The Via Media program started a lot more recently than Alpha and is not interdenominational in the same way Alpha is, so not nearly as many people have had a chance to take it as of yet.

John

[karen freeinchristman]

Thanks John! I would like to be able to organise an Alpha course at my church. The vicar doesn't seem too keen on it though (he is sceptical of evangelical-wing stuff). Alpha has a great reputation, and seems to be one thing which has been shown to contribute to church growth recently.

[Fish and Bread]

Thanks John! I would like to be able to organise an Alpha course at my church. The vicar doesn't seem too keen on it though (he is sceptical of evangelical-wing stuff). Alpha has a great reputation, and seems to be one thing which has been shown to contribute to church growth recently.

One of the nice things about Alpha is that it can be locally adapted to the needs of any given parish. At the parish where I took it, the rector didn't feel the tape on gifts of the spirit was quite in line with the way he would have liked to have it presented, and instead substituted his own talk where the tape would have normally aired that week. It was actually quite funny, because he was dressed in Nicky Gumbel's shirt and started the talk using Mr. Gumbel's accent, mannerisms, and expressions. I'd imagine a short introduction to some of the videos by a member of the parish or clergy or a substitute talk some weeks might help tailor the course more towards your parish's theological leanings.

John

[Naomi4Christ]

About 8 weeks ago all the churches in my local area joined together to organise and take part in something called 'the Reach Out Mission' <snip>

That sounds fab, Eby. You must feel really encouraged. I must share this info with the rest of our mission team and think about doing something similar. We have a lot of events where we invited people into our church buildings, and we go out to specific places (schools, day centres), but we don't really go out to the general population.

Someone once said that most of what we called 'outreach' was really 'drag in' - but your event does sound like outreach.

[Naomi4Christ]

Father Nicky

Don't let him hear you call him that! :D

[Naomi4Christ]

One of the nice things about Alpha is that it can be locally adapted to the needs of any given parish. At the parish where I took it, the rector didn't feel the tape on gifts of the spirit was quite in line with the way he would have liked to have it presented, and instead substituted his own talk where the tape would have normally aired that week.

This is actually not allowed. The contract with Alpha says that you have to keep the talks intact and as close to the HTB model as possible. We do the talks with a live speaker, and you can hear the Nicky Gumbel talks in them because they use the same jokes, etc. Only personal anecdotes are changed (different wife), but the meaning is the same.

[Finella]

Hi, Karen --

I'm not sure what you mean by mission/outreach, as some of what people are responding with sound a bit like evangelism, which to me is a bit seperate from outreach. My former parish was great at doing outreach, but not so good at evangelism, which is why I think the distinction is important.

Some of the things St. P's did (and it was a fairly large, well-off parish) included hosting speakers on various topics (such as stewardship of the environment, interfaith issues, arts and spirituality) presented in a variety of formats, such as workshops or over a dinner. All of these events were advertised in the local paper and were open to the public. A very-well attended version of this was an evensong/speaker combination held once a month with an ongoing theme throughout the liturgical year, the most popular topic being our faith and our care of the environment. Many non-churched people came to both the evensong and the dinner, and even if they didn't attend our church through that we made sure to add them to our mailing lists and keep connected with them.

We also had a very good welcoming committee, and a whole welcoming awareness through them, some of which Dogsbody addressed: greeters at the door, nametags for _everyone_, good signage of where the sanctuary was, where the sunday school rooms were, the bathrooms and the nursery, etc. After the service the head of the welcoming committee would greet any new people and spend coffee hour with them and connect the newcomers to other parishioners of similar interests and backgrounds, while getting contact information. Newcomers were invited to dinners with new and more established parishioners in order to further acquaint them with members of the church, and this often led to asking newcomers to engage in parish activities such as the choir or the rummage sale.

Oh, the rummage sale! St. P's was very well-known for its annual rummage sale -- as it is located in a pretty posh neighborhood, the items for sale were usually of high-quality and thus drew huge crowds. The proceeds all went toward the outreach grants (various agencies and programs applied for outreach grants from the parish) and whatever didn't get sold would get donated to charities. The whole event took a lot of organization and sorting, and for one weekend late in the summer it takes over the entire parish complex with many volunteers selling and interacting with the patrons.

A cool thing that our parish did in conjunction with several other parishes in the area was the Interfaith Hospitality Network -- a group of churches and synogogues that took turns hosting several homeless families in their buildings for two-week periods. The parents would spend the days at job training or receiving other services, the kids would go to school, and in the evening volunteers from the organization would come in to cook dinner and be hosts to the families; there also were overnight staff to keep an eye on things. The aim of the project was to help people get the services they need and become able to live and work independently -- there were many success stories, and the parish was very committed to being part of this effort, even installing showers in the crypt so that the families didn't have to go to the YMCA for bathing!

While St. P's had all these wonderful things, it did not have an evangelism committee (it had lost its members and never was reinstated). The efforts to witness to the Gospel were more action-oriented than about verbalizing and comminicating what it meant for us to be a Christian community; while I'm all about witnessing through our actions rather than preaching, this component was lacking a bit, and the parish seemed more focused on doing-doing-doing rather than on why we were doing it. This resulted in a lot of burnout, as a few people took on many leadership roles and felt they weren't supported in the long-run by the entire parish. So that's the danger, there, and the only problem I had with all the wonderful work that was being done.

Whew. Hope that's helpful! :)

[karen freeinchristman]

Thanks to everyone who has posted! :thumbsup:

I'm not sure what you mean by mission/outreach, as some of what people are responding with sound a bit like evangelism, which to me is a bit seperate from outreach. My former parish was great at doing outreach, but not so good at evangelism, which is why I think the distinction is important.

Hi Finella,
thanks for that great summary of what your church has been doing in outreach/evangelism. It sounds like you have a good welcoming policy.
I agree that outreach can be separate from evangelism. I guess when I posted the OP, I was trying to find out about what people were doing in mission, which to me can mean outreach with an evangelistic component. Our church is quite good at putting on the social events for the community, but not so good at evangelising.

[Fish and Bread]

This is actually not allowed. The contract with Alpha says that you have to keep the talks intact and as close to the HTB model as possible. We do the talks with a live speaker, and you can hear the Nicky Gumbel talks in them because they use the same jokes, etc. Only personal anecdotes are changed (different wife), but the meaning is the same.

Hmmm. Maybe an alternative for those parishes which feel uncomfortable with the theology of some of the Alpha talks would be to create their own "Alpha like" program. The model used in Alpha of a meal, a video or a talk about the basics of Christianity ultilizing a lot of humor, and small discussion groups seems to be one that works quite well.

John

[higgs2]

What a great question. You specify community and local, so I'd have to list our weekly food bank collections, with special ingatherings for school supplies, Thanksgiving baskets, etc. Also, we cooperate with several other churches and habitat for humanity. Some of our folks work on the houses, and we provide snacks for the workers.

Then there's Vacation Bible school with the Methodists and Presbyterians, that is a huge outreach project to the local community every summer. Our church has an after school program for elementary school kids once a week and it we have "unchurched" kids, and kids from other churches as well as our kids attending it. WE have games, crafts, snacks, singing and service projects. The kids have visited the nursing home and made cards and gifts for shut ins and nursing home patients. It's also just a fun safe place for kids, no preaching. We also have a mom and tots group that will begin meeting in our parish hall.

Our priest and several of our lay people visit the hospitals and nursing homes constantly. We donate to many local organizations every year out of our church budget, like homeless shelter, violence free crisis line, women's shelter, humane society, free medical clinic etc.

We participate in the Salvation Army's program at Christmas where people sign up to buy gifts for a family, and we had a community wide children's event to gather donations for toys for tots. We take an offering every month for a local charity or ERD.

At Epiphany we have a cake and those who get a dime turn it in for a dollar and spend the year investing it to earn money for church camp scholarships. for our family this has involved baking bread and making Christmas ornaments and selling them at coffee hour!

Ummmm... well we do equip and send our parishioners forth to love and serve God in gladness and singleness of heart every week and it must be helping becuase it is amazing what most of the people in our church do to help the community as their own ministries!

If we get beyond local there's more; various projects with and for our sister diocese in Southern Africa, making "rag dolls" for children in tragic circumstances such as war, ERD donations for various causes such as the Tsunami, Katrina etc., ERD fair trade coffee -- we buy it ourselves and are going to begin selling it too, profits go to ERD and a local cause. And at Christmas we promote ERD's "Gifts for Life" alternative giving program.

[karen freeinchristman]

thanks higgs2!

It is really inspiring and uplifting to hear what is going on in churches out there!
:clap: :clap: :clap:


Regarding the Alpha posts, I think the Holy Spirit part is what my vicar objects to as well, like John's.

Anyone done any Emmaus? There are different levels of it, depending on who you are trying to reach or disciple. We are considering it now at our church, especially the first evangelistic level... we've done the more advanced level which is really for people already in church who want to dig deeper.

[Fish and Bread]

Regarding the Alpha posts, I think the Holy Spirit part is what my vicar objects to as well, like John's.

I wonder if your parish could get away with simply skipping over that particular segment and making the overall course run one week less. We skipped several videos at my old parish. Granted, I'm not sure we were supposed to, but I'd imagine that the supervision from the people who make sure one is following the rules is a little closer in Alpha's homeland. :)

Anyone done any Emmaus?

My parish was pretty active in Curisillo, which I am told is similar to Emmaus. I was invited to participate, but had to decline due to health reasons. The people who did it seemed quite enthusiastic about the experience, though!

John