A reader of this blog writes:
Hi there! I am the Senior Warden at St Swithen's Episcopal Church. We are a small congregation with typical Sunday attendance around 60. There are so many other small Parishes like ours and we have a lot to share. We are currently trying to come up with ways to attain growth. I'm sure you know the struggles of doing such a thing.
Another endeavor we are embarking on is to develop an Outreach program. But we were wondering what other Parishes are doing to reach out to the Community. We're trying to find out how we could be the most effective in helping out our neighbors. Could you possibly start a thread going concerning what others might be doing to reach out to those in need? If you could provide any information, that would be wonderful! Thanks!!
Okay readers, time to stop being shy and share. With 100+ readers a day I know there are many stories and wisdom to be shared..what is your small congregation doing to reach out and help your neighbors? And if you are not part of a faith community, when you look around at "church", at what we profess to be, and see our neighbor's need, how would you answer this faithful senior warden?
11 comments:
I hope this will qualify as "wisdom" and not as folly. My message is to listen to what people are telling you they need, look at what resources you have available, see how you can put the two together. Most of all, don't worry about what will look good in the newspaper or the diocesan newsletter.
Our little parish church, about the same size as the Senior Warden in question, had been doing the usual "acceptable" outreach ministries -- Habitat, food drives, etc., with more a sense of duty than a sense of enthusiasm.
Two years ago this month, a girl in the Sunday School came up to me at coffee hour and asked what the kids would be doing after Sunday School ceased for the summer. (I had directed the Christmas Pageant, so I guess she figured I would know the answer to this question.)
I had no idea, frankly. Usually the kids had just drifted away over the summer, and begun to reconvene in September. Thinking quickly, I said "What do YOU think the kids should do?"
She said "Well, we could play soccer."
I happened to be looking out at the field in our parish backyard when she said this, and something clicked. Yes, indeed, we COULD play soccer.
Things just seemed to fall into place from then on. Unknown to me was the fact that we had three soccer coaches in our congregation, and others with serious playing experience. We had a lot of kids (and their parents) who found the whole idea captivating.
We even began to attract some neighborhood kids who saw the action and stopped in.
Our third summer starts June 10, and this year we are making a real effort to reach out to kids in our area who haven't yet appeared and the community in general. We've got our fingers crossed a little how this will play -- it is pretty unconventional for a church to do such a seemingly frivilous thing -- but so far it is going really, really well. It brings in new people, it involves the marginal members, and it lets us reach out into the community. We have some material about our program on our parish website at www.trinitylimerock.org
Every church does not have an 8 acre field for a back yard, nor does every church have a pesky nine year old to suggest something as outrageous as having the kids play soccer in the summer.
But every church has resources of some kind, and, hopefully, every church can generate ideas. I guess my message is that "the" great idea can come from an unexpected direction -- don't be afraid to kick the envelope a little!
Do you have a fiction book club? We advertised in the local newspaper and the interest was excellent. We meet the second Tuesday of the month in the Parish Hall for an hour and a half. It was not our intention to recruit new members BUT one of the members of the book club has started attending worship services and expressed an interest in joining.
Our church in the Diocese of Chicago is the product of the merger of two even smaller missions; we are "St Nicholas with the Holy Innocents" now and our website is "OneBreadOneBody.org"
I''m trying to get a blog from the "closed" parish started again at the new website, so that may increase our visibility on the Web.
Before the merger, each church had started a small food pantry program, with one church focusing on an after-hours pantry aimed at the working poor, and the other church working through school counselors and social workers to adopt specific needy families for the school year.
Since the merger, we've continued the program with both the "after hours, all comers food pantry" and the "second family" pieces together.
What we do is distribute grocery bags in neighborhoods near the church, with flyers asking for food donations and giving suggested shopping list. We emphasise that it's a supplemental program and that we also support the local village's food pantry. We've gotten a little bit of press, and just last Sunday distributed several hundred bags in a new area.
Each volunteer takes a route map with a specific number of bags, and walks around a couple of blocks leaving bags at doors. Sometimes we chat with people and explain the program if they happen to be out of doors, and sometimes not. Either way, we tend to get about a 20-25% rate of return, when we go back the next week to pick up any bags left out for us.
The last time we distributed bags, last winter, we were led out the doors of the church by Bishop Victor Scantlebury, in full vestments. A newspaper sent a photographer, and the Bishop enjoyed the day (though not the cold).
We'll be growing a vegetable garden this summer also, to add fresh veggies to the food bags on pantry nights. That is already getting some notice from nearby neighbors... they're unhappy that we're expanding the garden plot.
Oh well, you can't please everyone. But we welcome everyone, and thank you for providing this comment section!
Great comments! Thank you!
One important aspect of reaching out is being/becoming aware of your community and the community's needs. Looking at your congregation's PERCEPT report (available for free from the Congregational Development web site at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/growth_60791_ENG_HTM.htm )can be a very helpful part of this process.
What do people in your community worry about? What are their major stressors? In what ways might they be most open to learning more about what it is to experience the power of Christ's transformative love?
More and more I am convinced that the shift that must happen is one of focus, the shift from it being about us (we want to reach out because we need members to balance the budget or so our pews don't look so empty) to being about them. (We want to reach out because we have experienced the transformational power of Christ's love in some way and it grieves us that people are hurting and in need or are placing value on things that are in the end transitory, or...and are not open/able to allow Christ's love to transform their experience.)
I had intended to post another strand prior to leaving to present at the Start Up Start Over in Phoenix, but I like this strand and the energy. I want to let it run for another week.
Blessings! Suzanne
great ideas!
Our little church in Wyoming has about 30 worshippers every Sunday. We host a Thanksgiving Day Friendship dinner every year (have been doing this for about 12 years) and share diner turkey and all the trimmings with anyone who would like to come. We have many who would be alone otherwise, who come to join us. Some have been coming for the entire 12 years. This year we also began doing the same thing at Christmas. On average I would say we serve about 25 meals.
We also do a biannual rummage sale that is very successful.
We have an afterschool program every Wednesday for any child in the community who would like to attend. Those who attend are not generally members of our church.
I'm from a cluster ministry of 4 small congregations and I really like what other commenters have said about building on people's natural interests and inclinations. We have a fairly successful free community meals program in 3 of our churches. We also participate in some community programs such as cancer walks, where we aren't doing the organizing, but a group of people from the church participate and others from the church sponsor them. This provides two-way awareness: the church is more aware of the community need and the community sees the church responding. And I don't know if a foyer group counts as reaching out, but getting together to share meals in each other's homes does provide a way for church members to develop closer bonds. If you are interested, you can find a lot more detail on the ministry page at our website: www.lcem.org
We have first friday. We have a pot luck and tons of games. Last night we had 17 people. The adults played yatzee and the kids (6 of them) played whatever they wanted (varying from boys building forts to battleship to trouble "the game.") I write the parish post and encouraged people to bring friends. We had 3 visitors who had a great time. We told them to please come back and if they were not doing anything stop in Sunday but stop in.
Having functions like ice creams socials and telling the kids to invite their friends are a great way of getting people to at least come to the church. (I like the soccer game but we're in the city and don't have much room, I'm envious).
I'm continuing to come back to this thread for ideas, and I particularly like the one that "Bob in SWPA" presented. We did "Dinner and a movie" on a Friday night each month this spring, and it was reasonably successful -- it appealed more to the older people than the kids, unfortunately. (One problem we keep encountering is finding movies that are suitable and of interest to several generations.)
The game night idea is a great one, and I am going to suggest it at our house!
I should also mention a perceived community need that surprised us a little. Last fall, we showed the Al Gore global warming movie preceded by a potluck. I have to admit we were unprepared for the 60+ people who appeared, despite minimal publicity, most of them new faces for us. In thinking about it, I guess we were the first people in the area who showed that film for free, and we obviously struck a chord with people who were concerned about the environment. We're not particularly an activist parish, but it does suggest that by being flexible and open to new ideas we may appeal to people who aren't finding the level of social activism they want in their own houses of worship (if any).
All,
Thanks for the great ideas. I am a Vestry member on a committee discussing these same issues. One additioonal element. Our Priest just began her second year. She is terrific... positive and inspirational. I could go on. My idea is to mail postcards in our community to welcome all to attend. My thought was to use the "Episcopal Church welcomes You" theme with a photo and short bio of out Priest on the back along with worship times.
Would this be appropriate? Does the Church have postcards like this?
Thanks
Me again... in the intervening months, the vegetable garden is flourishing and has been producing a lot of tomatoes and other vegetables. Whatever we can't hand out on the food pantry nights gets donated to the township food pantry, which has a "Giving Garden" program with the local paper.
Also since then, we've started 4 ministry teams - and everyone was invited to sign up to one or more according to their interests. It's early to tell, but we're attempting to work with the energy that we each have toward different aspects of ministry. One thing we're definitely moving forward with on one team is a prayer blanket ministry - we've made 2 simple prayer blankets that will be presented to two parishioners with health problems, and we hope to continue with that.
We're also in the process of choosing a completely new name... fortunately the diocese is very supportive as our merger resulted in some property for them to sell, and they're helping us with some expansion into new program space (all the small churches in this area were built TOO small for growth).
We recently had a rummage sale that raised $5000... but more than that, 30 of us (out of average weekly attendance of about 50-60 in the summer) helped out over the weekend. For the first time, we were one community, not two. That was more important than the dollar amount to many of us (but a successful sale sure helps us keep up the enthusiasm through the summer doldrums).
We're working on inviting, welcoming, nurturing, and giving, with more to come.
Fall is going to be very interesting. We'll be putting on several events (pet blessing, Recovery Sunday) because we're a community with a lot of pets, and we host a number of recovery groups during the week.
Next year, who knows?
www.onebreadonebody.org
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