I enjoyed the Please Go Away! article by Jeremy, on the subject of Connect 09. I was especially struck by this comment from Sandy -

“I presume that Connect 09 is supposed to be more than awareness raising or cold-contact evangelism. My concern is that I do not see clear ideas of how this will occur on a mass scale yet and am very keen to have more ideas or greater clarity about that.”

I wrote something similar, just after Synod -

My problem is that there is not yet much detail on how all this “connecting” is going to happen. I get the impression that this is going to be mostly the responsibility of the individual parishes. But I suspect the majority of parishes would not have any idea at all how to go about connecting with most people in their area. Those that know how to do it will already be doing it.

We will have to wait for more detail. But I believe Connect 09 will stand or fall on this issue.

I’m concerned Connect 09 will get caught up in the logistics of Bible distribution, and not enough energy will be put into the “Connect” part of the strategy.

One suggestion - EM could create a database of “101 ways to connect to your community”. Not just one line ideas, but fully developed, step by step suggestions, including costs. Things like Tim’s Square Foot Garden idea.

Thoughts?

Craig…

I have also been concerned over Connect 09 (for some of the reasons you suggest) and particularly the whole “mission” week approach. I have been contemplating blogging on it but have hesitated, not wanting to comment in haste. Seems that others are also concerned so perhaps now is the time…

RE: website great idea Craig.

There will be more on the Wild St/Maroubra public school and Berkeley LMB/Berkeley Hotel in the print version of SC. (presentation significantly different becuase of mediums)

The critical similarities between the two initiatives are:

1. The churches were ‘out’ in the community and this developed relationships with some key community leaders.
2. As a resu;t of point 1 they became aware of a genuine community need that they felt they could easily meet.

Its this process that needs to be replicated rather than any ‘magic bullet’ idea

BTW Craig… the inner west seems to be experiencing a baby boom. This is putting strain on toddler infrastructure. Has Annandale thought about including a kiddie playground in their new building. Add a coffee machine for freerefreshments and you’d have a Sat morning ministry winner!

...Just stirring ;)

One thing we learnt at our church was that everyone was spending so much time planing missions, running Sunday Schools, leading Bible Studies that we didn’t have enough time in the week to form relationships with people who arn’t Christians.

Jeremy, yeah we have a little playground in the new plans, which will be very popular I’ve no doubt. We’ve made some good connections via our mothers group, which tends to support what you say about the baby boom…

Sheldon Ryan - 29 January 2008 12:27 PM

One thing we learnt at our church was that everyone was spending so much time planing missions, running Sunday Schools, leading Bible Studies that we didn’t have enough time in the week to form relationships with people who arn’t Christians.

Sshhh Sheldon...you’re not supposed to suggest that doing all these activities doesn’t achieve much

has anyone done much thinking about the virtues of attractional churches in contrast to say enculturated (also badged ‘incarnational’) churches?

iow
how much do we think about ‘out reach and in drag’ in contrast to ‘ go to and live in’ as a way of connecting with culture to which we are sent?

should we start a church soccer team or join the local?

Can you provide more detail on the two models? Perhaps a list of characteristics of each?

Jeremy Halcrow - 29 January 2008 11:03 AM

BTW Craig… the inner west seems to be experiencing a baby boom. This is putting strain on toddler infrastructure. Has Annandale thought about including a kiddie playground in their new building. Add a coffee machine for freerefreshments and you’d have a Sat morning ministry winner!

...Just stirring ;)

Hi Jeremy -

While having a very small site, we own the biggest backyard in Annandale.  I remember walking into the back yard with the then mayor and saying ‘And here we want to put a kids playground.’ He looked at me, looked at the senior planner next to him and said with a smile ‘I thought you were going to say flats.’ (Check out the plans and a video walkthrough)

He said several times that a key reason that he backed our proposal all the way through council was that there was a chronic shortage of community facitities - which the council couldn’t afford to provide.  He saw our project as one that they didn’t have to fund that would benefit the community.

And coffee is very much part of our plans - in fact it’s our church logo :)

Craig Schwarze - 30 January 2008 08:52 PM

Can you provide more detail on the two models? Perhaps a list of characteristics of each?

Hi Craig
from what I can gather an attractional model of chuch seems to be the dominant one that is employed in church growth strategies across growth orientated churches… particularly in WASPish areas.

characterised by

1. buildings and faciitlies that accomodate platform ministry and church based program
2. edgy preaching that connects with the life of its hearers in life application
3. an inspiriing experience of the church event - music, feel, etc
4. excellent parking faciilites for the consumers who travel 25 mins by car to get there
5. top programs in the key areas of kids - get this right and they’ll put up with poor parking and even poor preaching. (McDonalds principle)
6. a home group structure that provides Christians ed., pastoral care, sense of belonging
7. make sure next week was better than last week (and better than the church next door if we’re honest)
8. an ever increasing staff that keeps the whole thing ticking and members that have less and less time for relationships outside the maintenance of the ever burgeoning organisation.

there’s probably others but I think that’s basically characteristic of the attract ‘em in model - the key movement of people seems to be reach out and drag in.
you connect by meeting the spiritual (and sometimes less than spiritual) consumer.

This has been my experience on staff of at least two churches that have had strategies for growth.

I’ll have a think over night and contrast some other model(s) in the morning.
enjoy Grace
Shane

Hi Again

I thought I should clarify why I raise the question.
when we think about how we are going to connect with the culture into which we are sent, there is often a flurry of creative ideas - 101 even- but my guess is it often assumes we are working out of the same model of church growth strategy -namelly the model I describe above.

a question I would like to pose is if we are going to consider connecting with the culture we may need to consider a whole new model of doing church that differs from what the majority of our churches presently employ. i.e at least consider it.

think of it this way

if the model I describe above is modestly accurate - we are going nowhere near the 10% of the population who may respond positively to it. It seems 95% of bble based churches are going for that 10%.of the population - and we aint getting them - though we are shifting people around considerably whch looks really good on paper but that won’t last too much longer
Which leaves the rogue 5% who aren’t employing the same strategy to reach the other 90% who are highly unlikely to come to even the sexiest and cutest of uber cool attractional churches.

in the words of a salvo freind ‘we’ve lost he uniform but we are still holding a tambourine’.

crude figues but the point is we need more than one model of church and we need to contrast models if we are seriious about connecting. hope that makes sense.

will get back to you about an alternatve model

joyfully

Shane, I’ll be interested to see some of your suggestions…

Let’s see how I think my morning church measures up!

Shane Rogerson - 30 January 2008 11:54 PM

from what I can gather an attractional model of chuch seems to be the dominant one that is employed in church growth strategies across growth orientated churches… particularly in WASPish areas.

characterised by

1. buildings and faciitlies that accomodate platform ministry and church based program

In my opinion - TICK!

2. edgy preaching that connects with the life of its hearers in life application

TICK!

3. an inspiriing experience of the church event - music, feel, etc

The word “inspiring” is so subjective. So is our response to music, dependent on our preferences & choices. I love the organ hymns at 8:30 and 10:30. A few bopper types are OK too (Rob Smith’s leading of “We are his people” last Sunday was great), as long as this isn’t overdone. Which at my morning church, it never is.

In short (to me), TICK!

4. excellent parking faciilites for the consumers who travel 25 mins by car to get there

TICK! But I get there early for Sunday School prep., so maybe it’s different for the sneakers-in-late!!

5. top programs in the key areas of kids - get this right and they’ll put up with poor parking and even poor preaching. (McDonalds principle)

As one involved in our Sunday School - by the grace of God we’re doing OK. In 2003 we started with 7 regular kids. Now we have up to 26! I guess we must be doing a few things right. So...TICK!

6. a home group structure that provides Christians ed., pastoral care, sense of belonging

Well, when I’ve attended the day women’s Bible study, I’ve always been really encouraged. TICK! But then again, I have to say I hadn’t attended that regularly from 2003 to 2007!

7. make sure next week was better than last week (and better than the church next door if we’re honest)

Well, we in Sunday School are always trying to improve ourselves, God willing. TICK?

8. an ever increasing staff that keeps the whole thing ticking and members that have less and less time for relationships outside the maintenance of the ever burgeoning organisation.

A bit ignorant about this one, so I can’t say!

But not counting Shane’s 8th point, 7 out of 7 ain’t bad.

Moral of the story is, come to the cathedral!!

{And by the grace of God, if you have little tykes (or bigger ones), under God we will endeavour to (as somebody once sang) “teach your children well”.}

...plug, plug...hehe…

TZ.

Yeah, our church at Annandale certainly fits the “Attractional” model too. I don’t see us changing strategy, as it seems to be working for us.

But I fully appreciate Shane’s point that other models are necessary, and I will be very interested to see how things develop, and I’ll be praying that God blesses him richly at Cooks River.