The Institute of Evangelism

Every Church an Evangelizing Community!

Good Idea is our online magazine where you’ll find inspiration, tips, ideas, and stories of how God is working in other churches. Every month we offer one good idea to help churches grow in sharing the faith.

Good Idea!

What Ed Offers – Greeting, Welcoming and Integrating Newcomers

by .

Available as a PDF This Article is originally from the Fall 2005 edition of good idea!, also available here in a fully formatted PDF file.
The version below was updated January 3, 2009

Many people in our society would say they are “exploring their spirituality.” Some of them at one time or another will check out the church, to see if we have anything to offer them in their explorations. What will their experience of our church be like? Will it be welcoming? Will their encounter with Christians be such that they want to repeat it the next week-and the next-or will it be such that they never want to come again?

Often parishes will identify themselves as welcoming, nurturing communities, when in reality there are numerous barriers that make it difficult for newcomers to enter into the life of our congregations.

Ed Dallow has adopted and adapted principles from Andrew Weeks’ book Welcome! (The Alban Institute, 1992) to create a highly effective program of welcoming and integrating newcomers at Christ Church-so effective that a couple of years ago they erected a new building to accommodate the enlarged congregation. He has also developed a very helpful workshop in response to those who have asked about the practices which have been so fruitful in Cataraqui.

Ed’s presentations are therefore designed to provide ideas, tools and techniques to help congregations with skills of Greeting, Welcoming and Integrating Newcomers into the Body of Christ. Our goal should be that someone visiting us for the first time will discover something exciting and God-inspired in our worship services and in our community, and be drawn to return and learn more.

In the workshop we examine such things as:

  • Evangelism and stewardship as they relate to our culture
  • the ‘real-life’ situations of the churches represented at the workshop
  • the pros and cons of ‘marketing techniques’
  • responding to those who come wanting ‘Rites of Passage’

• providing opportunities for ‘seekers’ to become involved in the life of the congregation.

A key part of these workshops is looking at case studies provided by those attending, with a view to discovering workable solutions.

A Radically Different Life: One Person’s Story

by .

 

Available as a PDF This Article is from the Spring 2007 edition of good idea!, also available here in a fully formatted PDF file.

Missions serve many purposes such as revitalization, vision renewal, and a challenge to discipleship. But, whatever else happens, evangelism is always a central purpose of these events. This is the story of someone who found faith in Christ through parish missions—and the witness of a friend.

My very presence in a room can make clergy tremble with fear. I can raise their hopes as quickly as I can dash them. I am able to wound and torture their sensibilities effortlessly. At my fingertips, I have the power to ruin a well-planned day. Even though I can do all this, I am not a bishop. I am an organist.

Week after week, as I sat perched on the organ bench, I listened to stories from the Bible I had never heard before. My thoughts went a little like this: Who wrote these stories and why? What in heaven’s name was going on with the Psalmist? He was moody and unpredictable—rather like an organist. And who was Jesus? And what did he want with me? You see, I am thirty-eight years old, and I belong to the ever-increasing part of the population which has no Christian memory whatsoever.

No one from church ever talked about Jesus, the Bible or God. I had very simple questions but the Christians around me couldn’t answer them. I started asking the priest questions. After all, he spoke with integrity and I trusted him.

A few months later, several students from Wycliffe College arrived for a mission weekend in my parish. Unsure of these Christians, I kept myself aloof. I made one friend among the students that weekend. Witnessing Thor’s relationship with Christ radically altered my perception of the accessibility of God. I began to consider baptism into the Christian faith.

A year went by and another team, including Thor, returned to my parish. This time, my aloofness was replaced with warmth and joy. I knew then that my life with Christ would be radically different from my life before Christ.

Thor died suddenly in December 2001, shortly after that second mission trip. We had one year to cultivate our friendship, one year to ask and answer questions about Christ, one year to witness what God was doing in our lives. It was in the spirit of that friendship, more than any other, that I learned about God’s profound love for me. I remember how deeply happy Thor was when I told him I was to be baptised in January of 2002. 

My life is far richer for the experience of those mission trips, far richer for having lived, walked, and shared my life with those mission teams, far richer with Christ, than one can possibly fathom.

What Judy Offers – Leadership and Evangelism

by .

 

Available as a PDF This Article is from the Fall 2005 edition of good idea!, also available here in a fully formatted PDF file.

For churches to thrive in a post-Christian culture, at least two things are needed.

They need clear leadership to help them switch from maintenance mode to understand and focus their calling to mission.

Good pastoral leadership can make the difference. Secondly, many congregations are still nervous about evangelism, but need to recapture a healthy understanding of evangelism if they are to shape their communal life to minister to the needs of the spiritually hungry.

Judy offers three presentations to address these twin issues of leadership and evangelism.

They can be combined in different ways to suit the requirements of the hosting group. Each presentation is self-contained, and can form a half-day workshop. Or the three can be run consecutively to create a one-day workshop. In either format, the goal is to encourage and strengthen clergy and other leaders in their leadership role, and to offer an understanding of leadership and evangelism which is stretching but which has integrity.

The workshop’s narrative style examines such issues as: the transformative nature of the Gospel, the key tasks of effective leadership, the unique challenges and possibilities for ministry in today’s culture, and strategies for building or rebuilding compelling and passionate communities of faith.

What Connie Offers – Next Steps in Parish Development

by .

 

Available as a PDF This Article is from the Fall 2005 edition of good idea!, also available here in a fully formatted PDF file.

 

Connie was born and grew up in Southern Ontario. One parent was Roman Catholic and the other Christian Reformed, and the family settled into the United Church of Canada as a bridge. It was in the United Church that Connie experienced a spiritual awakening as a teenager. This diversity of background allows Connie to work comfortably and knowledgeably in a broad spectrum of denominations and theological milieus.

A graduate of Emmanuel College within the Toronto School of Theology, Connie also holds a doctorate from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, with a specialty in Church Growth.

Connie was ordained by the Toronto Conference of the United Church in 1980 and has served United Churches in rural Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, London (Ontario), and Toronto.

She has been involved in starting three churches: one suburban United, one multi-cultural Pentecostal, one English speaking congregation within a Methodist Chinese Church. Connie has successfully led church “reboots,” one rural and two suburban, taking congregations which had stalled at a membership of about fifty to 150, 180, and 220. She is also a trainer of coaches for Natural Church Development.

Since 1999, she has been team minister at Alderwood United Church in Etobicoke, Ontario. Aware that the successes of a previous decade may have little relevance in the communities we face today, Connie is in the early stages of working with this congregation to shift from a building-centred ministry to missional thinking, a process that will probably take a decade.

Connie continues to pursue a wide variety of Church Development-related interests. She is a trainer and experienced coach for Natural Church Development, a conference presenter for Alpha Canada, an experienced coach of church planters (particularly during the planning stage and critical first years), a church consultant, conference speaker, and a lecturer in Church Planting at Wycliffe College.

She lives with her husband Doug, the pastor of an ethnically diverse Methodist Church in Bramalea, and two teenagers, in Brampton, Ontario where they are restoring and renovating their century home.

What Connie Offers

 Many churches would say they are “doing OK” but confess that they are not growing in either depth or numbers, and do not know how to move forward. Connie brings a broad and sympathetic knowledge of “how churches really work” and a large repertoire of alternatives to the status quo in the form of her Next Steps presentations:

Next Steps for Congregations

For the leadership teams of parishes that have plateaued or are aware of the need to explore other avenues of ministry. Connie is an experienced diagnostician and practitioner who will facilitate discovery of helpful strategies for the individual parish or congregation.

Next Steps for Denominational Leaders

For denominational leaders who would like to broaden the repertoire and improve the morale of their clergy, Connie offers interactive workshops, seminars, and plenary sessions on trends in Canadian Christianity, Natural Church Development, Spiritual Gifts Discovery, and other topics as requested.

Next Steps for New Parishes

Connie will meet with individual church planters or area clusters of church planters for mission strategy and problem solving.

What George Offers – Growing Youth Ministries

by .

 

Available as a PDF This Article is from the Fall 2005 edition of good idea!, also available here in a fully formatted PDF file.

Youth ministry is seeing a renewed emphasis in Canada after having fallen off for several generations. The vast majority of young people are no longer involved in parish life after early adolescent years, and where they are present they often say that they feel like aliens in the church. This disconnect needs to be overcome, but many people say they don’t know how.

George’s training and involvement in youth ministry in various contexts over many years has put him in a place where he also works with youth leaders to equip them for reconnection ministries. He leads explorations in engaging postmodern youth cultures, exploring adolescent development and spiritual formation, relationship-building and equipping adolescents for ministry.

Realising that congregations come in a variety of liturgical traditions, cultural/ demographic contexts, and different places with respect to youth ministry, he is flexible in his content and style.

George believes that every parish is called to some form of youth ministry. His goals are: (1) to help congregations explore their unique vocation in regard to youth, and (2) to see young people become fully functional disciples of Jesus engaged in ministry both inside and outside their home congregations.

He offers a one-day seminar entitled Growing YAMs (Younger Adolescent Ministries), aimed at helping congregations learn to minister effectively to youth in middle and junior high school.

George also offers a range of seminars for both paid and volunteer youth workers on such topics as: Starting an Effective Youth Ministry; Adolescent Spiritual Formation; Running Short-term Missions with Youth; and How to Plan and Run a Youth Conference.

Other youth-related topics can be negotiated with George to suit the particular needs of your ministry.

Eight into One: How Addition leads to Multiplication

by .

Combining small, declining churches into one larger one is an increasingly popular form of church planting. It requires the same visionary leadership and entrepreneurial attitude, and faces the same kind of challenges as the more traditional models.

In 2004, following three years of study and consultation, eight historic but struggling churches in New Brunswick were amalgamated into one new parish. A new program-size church now gathers each week in a local public school. Where our predecessor congregations were in steady decline, our combined attendance at this point is about 250 each Sunday. We decided that this new creation needed a new name, and the Church of the Resurrection topped our list–a name that perfectly reflects what God is doing in this new parish.

Why we did it
As in many places across Canada, shifting population distribution and urbanization have left us with church buildings in locations that can no longer support lively ministries. Increasing expenses coupled with reduced attendance have been a body-blow for many smaller churches like ours.

We have reorganized parishes again and again–tinkering with the multi-point and team-ministry models. But none of this has effectively stopped the decline. The decision to amalgamate and build again was a response to these challenges.

Where are we now
Amalgamation has enabled better multi-generational ministry. Our lively children’s ministry has up to a dozen teachers at times. We have hired a part-time youth minister and have active ministry with middle and high school students. Our worship is both traditional and contemporary, and a multimedia projector is used instead of books. In the spring an Assistant Curate is to begin here.

We have now purchased 4 acres of prime land at the heart of the most populated area of the parish. The lot is a church planter’s dream, located between the Post Office and the Subway on the main street. It is a highly visible lot and has a commanding view of the panorama of Grand Bay. 

Questions and Challenges
We are in the midst of the middle phase of this work of Church Planting and there are two challenges in particular.

The real long-term measure of our success will be how well we are able to attract, evangelize, and turn into disciples those who were not previously living for Christ. Many in our parish hold this vision, but there remains a tendency toward an inward-looking stance.

A second challenge on any long journey is fatigue. This enterprise has been demanding in every way of our large leadership team, and there is no let-up in sight! It is vital for the future of this project that we continuously invite others into leadership and pass along the vision which has led us to this point.

Our Lord is at work in this Parish, bringing new people to himself and calling a community to deeper faithfulness. It will be exciting ministry for many years to come as we seek to cooperate with Christ who “makes all things new.”

The Ven. Vicars Hodge is Rector of the Parish of the Nerepis and St. John, and Archdeacon of St. Andrew’s.

Church Planting as a Key to Evangelism: an Interview with Kevin Martin

by .

Dean Kevin Martin was responsible for church planting in the Diocese of Texas under Bishop Claude Payne. He is now Dean of St. Mathew’s Cathedral in Dallas, Texas. He was recently in Toronto, speaking and leading seminars. Assistant Editor Elin Goulden interviewed him for good idea!

GI: Kevin, why do you consider Church Planting so important?

KM: The number one reason that church planting is important is that it’s demonstrable that church plants are the church’s most effective tool for reaching unchurched people. 

Over the years I’ve consistently found it to be the case that the new church plant, by its very nature, is the most incorporating Christian community. If it’s done well, a new church plant will start off at a good level, can double in two years, and can double again in five years.

When you start a church plant, you can often reach groups of people who are never going to get reached by an existing parish. For example, in the Diocese of Texas, there are a lot of people working in the high tech industry in Houston. We started a church plant among them with a pastor who came from that kind of background, and whose heart was to reach them. After a while, he created a congregation with people in it that you normally wouldn’t see in the Episcopal Church–bright, articulate people who are very knowledgeable about technology but have no sense of spiritual roots or of spiritual need, and he created a whole church around these people.

GI: At a time when churches are closing, why are we talking about starting new ones?

KM: All parishes run through lifecycles. Some will regenerate in their lifecycles, but some congregations have just lived out their lifecycle and are going to close. Among Anglicans, our last great church planting endeavour was after the Second World War. All of those churches have run through a predictable 30-40 year life cycle. Most are on a downward part of the cycle and in need of revitalization. Many of them won’t make it. The effect will be a drop in the numbers.

New congregations are like new children. In the Diocese of Dallas, which experienced 12% growth over 10 years, if you took out the new church plants, the numbers would actually have shown a decrease of 5%. So the new church plants carried the growth. That’s why I’m a big believer in new congregations. If you don’t, as your churches go through their lifecycles, many will eventually die off and there won’t be new ones to replace them

GI: Could you take us step by step through the sequence of a church plant?

KM: A successful church plant follows a fairly logical sequence. First there is the conceptual phase. A planning group drawn from churches in the region along with diocesan staff, ask questions such as:

1) “Who’s out there?” What are the demographics? For example, in Texas we found that only 3% of the target population were Anglicans or expressed any interest in joining an Anglican church. But 22% of the unchurched population said they would attend a mainline church if a member asked them to go.
2) Who’s the team leader? This person has to connect with the group you are trying to reach. It helps if they come from that target group.
3) In five years, what size church do you want to plant? If you’re planting in a large area, why would you plan for a small church? 

During the second stage, you need to train your leaders and begin to plan strategy:

1) What are the 3 or 4 core values around which the church is going to be built? These are the areas of ministry which are going to be the focus of the church plant.
2) Five years from now, what are the developmental staff you will need? Fund them now and put them in place around the team leader.
3) Gather a core group of lay leaders around the leadership team, about 15-30 people. More than that is not helpful because they tend merely to reproduce what they’ve always done. Fewer than that doesn’t give enough of a financial boost. This core team is taught the core values around which the church is going to be created, and those ministries are created and practiced.

The third phase is the official launch. You can do a telephone campaign, go door-to-door–whatever works–to get the word out. The important thing is to launch the first Sunday with as many people as you hope (eventually) to have regularly. In an urban church, this would be over 200 people. You don’t start until you can get at least that many on the launch Sunday. The advantage of starting big is that on that first Sunday, everybody sees the church at the size they’re aiming for.

There is tremendous pressure from the bishop and the church planting team to launch early. But we found that the longer you delay the official start, the stronger the church will be when it eventually gets going. The lead-up period, in my experience, should be at least six months and preferably nine months to a year. 

GI: What kind of person do you need to start a church plant?

KM : You have to be a team leader. But they have to have two other characteristics that will get them over the difficulties and challenges involved. First, the church planter has to believe that people out there are lost and need God in their lives. How they express that can take different forms, but they need to have a passion to connect people to God. They are normally impatient with the unwillingness of the established church to go after the unchurched.

Secondly, church planters absolutely have to believe in their heart that they were called to this work. It is hard and exhausting work, and it’s often discouraging, and there are tough moments, including not knowing whether the stewardship will be enough. So they need that deep conviction.

Church plantings provide instances of miracle after miracle, of God providing every need. In existing churches, quite frankly, we often don’t need God to do much, because we have our systems and history and heritage to fall back on. But in a new church plant, God has to show up every Sunday or there’s not much happening! 

No matter how skilled or gifted a person is, if they don’t have those two fundamental things, they’re just not the right person to be a church planter.

“Rebooting” a Church

by .

Church planting does not always mean starting from nothing. The insights of church planters can also be applied to situations where an older congregation is in need of an infusion of new life. One church in Toronto has modeled how this kind of “re-boot” can work successfully.

In 1999, the Church of the Resurrection had dwindled to 57 people. The Rev. Chris King of the nearby parish of Little Trinity released 10% of that church to go with me to what became known as “the Rez” to do a “re-boot”.

God blended us together, the original congregation and the transplants, plus many new people who came, to be a more relevant mission-minded church. Though often more art than science, we applied the best in Church Planting thinking to shift our church culture to better reach our neighbours. Now 220 worship weekly, Sunday School is at capacity, and we are buzzing with activity.

We used a carefully planned and prayerfully executed process of transformation and re-shaping of our church culture. Many churches could use our model. A larger church (200 and above) could send people to help a smaller one turn around, if:

1) they share a theological outlook
2) there is a population near the receiving church that can be reached
3) they are determined to love each other over the long haul, and
4) they are willing to adjust how they sing, worship and “do church community” to converge with what their neighbours respond to.

Rapid growth presented challenges and blessings. Our church in 1999 was more pastoral and family oriented than were our urban neighbours. Growing meant losing some of that intimacy, as we learned new ways of forming community that had more evangelistic potential. It was hard but it was worth it.

One neighbour who visited us before we changed felt there was nothing here for him. Fortunately, he came for a second try as we were in the process of changing, and now he follows Christ, is growing spiritually, and is in leadership. That kind of blessing–and the smiling faces of children in our large Sunday School–we see daily.

  • Get a Good Idea once a month

    Get the Good Ideas e-newsletter monthly on how to share your faith and build up the people around you. It’s completely free and our gift to you.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.