Earlier this year, Andrew Nixon wrote an article on the 12 hard truths about ministry in Sydney that he learned from overseeing Connect09. As a result of the feedback he is completing a series of blogs on each of these ‘hard truths’. A list of the past blogs can be found here.
7. Church is rightly the locus of our lives as believers, but it is just too big a first step for un-churched unbelievers to attend.
Shane Rogerson asked whether Connect09 was simply a "new way to ring the church bell". It wasn't meant to be.
The whole point of "connect" was us out there in the community - whether as individuals in the day-to-day or churches and groups actively loving the local area - making new contacts.
And this happened to varying degrees.
So to be fair, Shane has a point. In many places, local Connect09 campaigns did revolve entirely around church services and church-based events.
But far from being a bad thing, such activities raised the profile of the local church, gave positive reasons for church members to get out and make contact with new people, visit door-to-door and so on. And in many cases, such activity helped re-connect people back into church.
I say "re-connect" because, as far as I can tell, those who will enter a church as adults (whether under their own steam, or with a church-going friend) have been before at some stage.
Please don't get me wrong, if you can get them through the door, that's brilliant. No point leaving the low-hanging fruit on the tree! The thing is not to think that by doing this work, we are doing the whole job of mission.
If, as Shane reminds us, our only evangelistic strategy is "ringing the church bell" (by which he means calling people to church), then we are only going to reach one slice of our local community. The rest, possibly even the majority, just won't come.
You might as well invite them to the moon. Even offering to "go with", which may help get some across the line, for others just ratchets up the pressure on an un-imaginable outing - no matter how well intentioned we may be. There must be other strings to our bow.
Generally speaking, people far from God and Christian faith must make many, many small steps on the road. A contact. A billboard. A conversation. A helping hand. The right word at the right moment. It may take many years; it may be more immediate. It is unlikely to involve church until a fair way along the track.
Question is, how are we (both as Churches and individuals) providing for those small steps? As we consider the many steps from "initial awareness of Christianity" to "front pew as baptised believer" what are we doing that God can be using?
We won't be able to provide every step for every person - life's not like that. But if all of our effort is focussed on strategies involving invitations to church/events we need to take another look at our whole mission strategy.
