Holy Day celebrations as a vehicle for outreach

[pmcleanj]

Dear friends, I would very much appreciate your comments on the following essay, which I have written for our outreach committee. It's very long, and I think what I'll do is post it on the www.logrus.ca site later this evening, and just post the summary, and a link here.

The kind of feedback I'm looking for is, do you think that this proposal has any value? Would it work as a form of outreach? What specifics would you do differently?

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The Christian Liturgical Year: an opportunity for outreach

Summary

Christmas and Easter have become so overloaded with frenetic intensity that, especially for unchurched families, they can become unrewarding days of stress and conflict that leave folk still hungering for some sense of meaning. Their hunger is an opportunity for Christian to reclaim traditional holidays from Christian history that we can share to help meet their need for spiritual meaning, with Christ as the focal point of every tradition we restore. For the sake of those we serve, we must exhume our traditions out of history, and offer them to our world!

The most significant historical holidays in addition to Easter and Christmas are Candlemas (February 2), Ladymas (March 25), Roodmas (May 3), Pentecost, StJeanmas (June 24), Lammas (August 1), Michaelmas (September 29), Hallowmas (November 1). In mediaeval times, these holidays enjoyed all the characteristics that make the difference between an unobserved “Holy Day” and a beloved holiday: public worship; story-telling; familiarity, tradition and nostalgia; shared community activities and a shared understanding of symbols; gift-giving, and special foods. Nowadays, these holidays’ traditions are no longer observed and are largely forgotten. But we can select, prayerfully, what traditions to reintroduce and how to reintroduce them in a way that reaches out to meet our neighbourhood’s spiritual needs.

Different traditional customs are documented for each of these, and most of those traditions can be re-cast in a modern setting, particularly as outreach events. We do need to recognize that offering such events will demand considerable commitment on the part of our congregation's people. We may well need to persist through two or three years of sparse attendance, to give the events time to catch on. But we can also expect considerable rewards, as these Holy Days’ traditions are inherently fun and meaningful. And we can expect to see Emmanuel grow as a church only if we are sincere in our commitment to outreach.

To avoid taking on too much too soon, a modest proposal is presented, of adding two Holy-day celebrations to our calendar in 2007. The first of these, a Roodmas/Rogation celebration featuring a gardening lecture, plant-exchange and Maypole dance, is driven by the urgency of reaching out to new families moving in to the condominiums down the road. The second of these, a Lammas/Michaelmas celebration in late August, is driven by the need to reconnect with our Vacation Bible School families as they are returning from vacation and making their plans for the new school year. In subsequent years we would need to persist in offering these two events to allow attendance to build up, and might consider adding additional events to our schedule.

A number of questions remain. Will these events actually appeal to the people of our neighbourhood? If we don’t make the effort to offer such events, we will never know. Do these events speak deeply enough of our congregation's Christian heritage, that we can succeed in making them meaningful for unchurched people? And most of all, are we truly willing to put significant effort into reaching out to draw others to Jesus?

[Fairbairn]

It's a fine proposal. We tend to focus our major family outreach activities around the school year, which in turn is built around the church year.

I would caution that those days are just a place on the calendar rather than the focus of the outreach activities themselves. It's nice to teach a little history lesson about lost traditions, but the key thing is to expose people to the life-changing power of the gospel.

It's important to realise that things like Candlemas is your tradition and heritage, but not theirs - and you are doing it for them.

[brightmorningstar]

I will have to think a bit more. But I would say that I dont believe any one particular element of outreach will affect all people. Any outreach we do may produce fruit. I would say God bless it all.

[pmcleanj]

Here's the link to the full essay. I imported it to HTML direct from MSWord:o so it's not tremendously well indexed. www.logrus.ca/HolyDayOutreach.html

The reason for reviving these old traditions is to meet the hunger for ritual and symbols that often drive young unchurched families to dabble in alternative and new religion; and was inspired by the unchurched children in my children's choir whose eyes went big and round, and whose parents said "ooh, I wish we did that" when I described my family's Candlemas tradition. If they yearn for such things, who better than the church to offer them? Better us than the neopagans or Freemasons!

[ludovica]

Sadly even Holy Week couldn't tempt anyone new to my church.. not that I saw anyway

[pmcleanj]

Sadly even Holy Week couldn't tempt anyone new to my church.. not that I saw anyway

Hmmm. Were Holy Week services meant as an outreach activity, or of conformation and nurture to the existing community, or as a way of serving God? I think, how successful something is at outreach may depend on whom you are trying to attract and how you go about it.

Even though the majority of the western world's populace are still nominally Christian, daily prayer and weekly church attendance are no longer the norm. Typically, less than 50% of the population attend church as often as once a month. Many have never been in a church building. So those, obviously, are not the people you are going to attract to Holy Week services. They might come to Easter Morning, if that's what they've been used to growing up: Christmas Eve and Easter Morning are typically the two services that largely apostate people go on attending after they've "graduated" from Sunday School.

Then, for the people who do attend church, very often once-a-month to once-a-week meets their spiritual needs. If we do want to attract those people to Holy Week services, we might have to ask ourselves what those services have to offer them -- and why (and whether) we really want those people there.

[karen freeinchristman]

The reason for reviving these old traditions is to meet the hunger for ritual and symbols that often drive young unchurched families to dabble in alternative and new religion; and was inspired by the unchurched children in my children's choir whose eyes went big and round, and whose parents said "ooh, I wish we did that" when I described my family's Candlemas tradition. If they yearn for such things, who better than the church to offer them? Better us than the neopagans or Freemasons!
I think your reasoning is very apt for many people - I agree that many would appreciate and are hungering for some kind of experience of ritual and symbolism in their search for meaning and truth. This is true both in rural and urban communities, in my view, although expressions may be different in those contexts. You know your community better than we do, but I think what you propose is certainly worth a try!

[ludovica]

Hmmm. Were Holy Week services meant as an outreach activity, or of conformation and nurture to the existing community, or as a way of serving God? I think, how successful something is at outreach may depend on whom you are trying to attract and how you go about it.

Even though the majority of the western world's populace are still nominally Christian, daily prayer and weekly church attendance are no longer the norm. Typically, less than 50% of the population attend church as often as once a month. Many have never been in a church building. So those, obviously, are not the people you are going to attract to Holy Week services. They might come to Easter Morning, if that's what they've been used to growing up: Christmas Eve and Easter Morning are typically the two services that largely apostate people go on attending after they've "graduated" from Sunday School.

Then, for the people who do attend church, very often once-a-month to once-a-week meets their spiritual needs. If we do want to attract those people to Holy Week services, we might have to ask ourselves what those services have to offer them -- and why (and whether) we really want those people there.

Well the "whether" doesnt matter right now.. we just desperately need numbers to save our Church and to retain our full time minister.
Of the 130 or so people that are actually on the electoral roll of the church, most will attend one service at Christmas, probably about half attend regularly once a week, under 10 will attend more than one service a week, with (typically) 3 attending the midweek eucharist and only one who attends Morning Prayer on Sunday

[pmcleanj]

I am very interested in the problem that you present. You may find it worthwhile to exchange ideas with "ebia" who is also a member of this board, and whose community has a similarly urgent need to grow their church membership. I found this study on church growth at the time that ebia had an open thread on how to meet a specific community's needs: http://fact.hartsem.edu/CongGrowth.pdf


Some of the interesting corelations found in that report:

Growth is more likely if you are willing to change worship format and style than if you insist on keeping things the same.
Growth is more likely if you can avoid conflict in the congregation -- the peacemakers truly are blessed!
Growth is more likely if you maintain a useable up-to-date website.
Growth is more likely in a culturally diverse congregation
Growth is more likely if you have a clear sense of what your mission is.
Growth is more likely where children are actively involved in the worship.
Growth is more likely if you host events to reach out to others.

I belonged for many years to a congregation -- indeed, I still belong to that congregation although due to family pressure I more often worship somewhere else -- that wanted to grow for the sake of being able to afford a new roof and boiler. But they didn't want to change. In particular they wanted to attract "nice families" by which they meant "families like ours was". But most of that congregation had had their families in the 1950's; and in the intervening decades most of the single-family homes in their neighbourhood had been pulled down and replaced by apartment buildings. Not only were the families living in those buildings unlikely to sport little girls in frocks and patent leather shoes, or little boys with school ties; they were unlikely to sport two parents or an Anglo-Saxon heritage; and the congregation was very uncomfortable with that sort of family.

Fortunately a wealthy member died and left a legacy, or the roof would still be leaking.

That principal of having a sense of mission seems key: it's reasonable that the Holy Spirit won't waste time on us unless we are reaching out to do God's work. Who are the people in your parish, who might come to your services? What does your parish have to offer them? Please, tell us more about your situation.

[ludovica]

I am very interested in the problem that you present. You may find it worthwhile to exchange ideas with "ebia" who is also a member of this board, and whose community has a similarly urgent need to grow their church membership. I found this study on church growth at the time that ebia had an open thread on how to meet a specific community's needs: http://fact.hartsem.edu/CongGrowth.pdf (http://fact.hartsem.edu/CongGrowth.pdf)


Some of the interesting corelations found in that report:

Growth is more likely if you are willing to change worship format and style than if you insist on keeping things the same.
Growth is more likely if you can avoid conflict in the congregation -- the peacemakers truly are blessed!
Growth is more likely if you maintain a useable up-to-date website.
Growth is more likely in a culturally diverse congregation
Growth is more likely if you have a clear sense of what your mission is.
Growth is more likely where children are actively involved in the worship.
Growth is more likely if you host events to reach out to others.I belonged for many years to a congregation -- indeed, I still belong to that congregation although due to family pressure I more often worship somewhere else -- that wanted to grow for the sake of being able to afford a new roof and boiler. But they didn't want to change. In particular they wanted to attract "nice families" by which they meant "families like ours was". But most of that congregation had had their families in the 1950's; and in the intervening decades most of the single-family homes in their neighbourhood had been pulled down and replaced by apartment buildings. Not only were the families living in those buildings unlikely to sport little girls in frocks and patent leather shoes, or little boys with school ties; they were unlikely to sport two parents or an Anglo-Saxon heritage; and the congregation was very uncomfortable with that sort of family.

Fortunately a wealthy member died and left a legacy, or the roof would still be leaking.

That principal of having a sense of mission seems key: it's reasonable that the Holy Spirit won't waste time on us unless we are reaching out to do God's work. Who are the people in your parish, who might come to your services? What does your parish have to offer them? Please, tell us more about your situation.

What you say is familiar. Only one service attracts anyone under 50, really, and that is the midmorning Sunday Parish Communion.. this usually draws 40 worshippers or so (but not me as I dislike the modern language liturgy) This Service has a Sunday School .. with 3 kids in it.
There are people here who still bring their children to Church... and the children are in their 70s!:D

Our Vicar is nearing retirement. *IF* we get another vicar (and we very well may not) I expect it will be someone else nearing retirement. I think the reserve, ennui and buttoned up-ness could well be terminal. Its a great pity. I wrote to the local paper trying to get people to come and support the church at the heart of the community, but got no response at all. It's very discouraging when you love a place as much as I love that church:( Its a large village too, and the church is very central... we just have too few Christians I think..