I took my three to the Family Fun Day yesterday, not really knowing what to expect and wondering if I would be making up numbers. How wrong I was - the placed was packed and with so many familiar faces.
I'm not meaning the church family, although they were there in the droves (thanks for making it such a good afternoon out), but families from Contact and Dad's Pop-in that I've known over the years my three have been going. It was wonderful to catch up with so many old friends.
I know we've been talking in the church about how to engage with those in our community and share the gospel with them and how we can get them to come to church and the services we offer. Well it seems to me that these families already come to church on a regular basis, they feel at home here and we already offer what they want to come to - it just doesn't happen to be on a Sunday.
The question remains then how do we show Jesus to those already coming through our doors? Perhaps we ask the wrong question first - instead of how can we make Sundays attractive, perhaps it should be how can we as individuals and a church be changed so that others will find our lives attractive?
I don't know - what does anyone else think?
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4 comments:
spot on, Liz. In many ways what we do on a Sunday is an irrelevance to the people at the fun day. And in a sense, it should be. Sundays should be about equipping the saints to leak grace to everyone through the week. It's not a place where those who aren't followers of Jesus are likely to be introduced to him. Which begs the question, how are we introducing Jesus to those who come to Contact, Quavers, dad's Pop-in, Friends International, iPad. This is not a criticism of what currently happens, just an invitation to think creatively about how we use the opportunities God gives us.
By the way, this is a great blog - well done, Liz
I'm glad to hear that the Fun Day went well. You are right, Liz - we have such a network of people who are already part of our community at Bromley Baptist and we need to be creative in what we do to help introduce them to Jesus. This is rarely likely to involve the worship time on a Sunday, although obviously it's good if people do come along. Perhaps we should be considering some sort of get-togethers in the week, a bit like cafe church, to give people the opportunity to explore issues that affect us all, Christian or not, that encourage spiritual thinking. Or perhaps we should be more prepared to go where the people are, not where we think they should be.
It strikes me that we run the risk of missing the obvious - we first show people Jesus by trying to be like him - offering advice where advice is needed, support where support is needed, friendship where friendship is needed, etc. This, on many fronts, we do well. One of my Pop In helpers commented on Saturday that only now, after three years or so of helping, some of the dad's are feeling comfortable enough to talk to him. Showing people Jesus can be, and often is, a very slow process that requires a consistent lifestyle and ongoing concern and interest in people's lives.
The issue for me is not how do we show people Jesus but rather how do we help them to get to know and start to walk with him. As Simon says this is unlikely to be in a Sunday service, more likely to be over a cup of coffee and cake (and what great cakes they were!) or whilst watching the FA Cup final on the big screens in the church.
I had many good, but brief, conversations with people on Saturday - conversations that will continue as and when over the months (and years?) ahead.
As we continue to look for ways of "doing church differently" we need to be fully aware that that is just what we did on Saturday!
Here's to many more fun days where seeds can be sown and seedlings nurtured.
A long time ago I blogged on my site about parties being the ideal mission strategy - let's throw parties for our neighbours, see who comes and chat about theb things they want to chat about. Fun days appear to be a variation of this strategy. So let's have more of them, devote our energies to making friends and seeing what happens.
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