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May 15, 2008
Where was everyone last night?
Last night, our church had one of our Reconciliation Meetings and the turn out was pretty poor. Not many staff, not many elders, very few "non-anglos", and very few of the core membership. Per capita there was actually a lot of single white female students. What happened?
I have some theories:
-It's mid-May when young people are swamped with exams and projects and parents are bound to their kid's needs. If that's true then why were there so many students there?
-Poor communication. Our church tells people about events, but it is told in a way that never really communicates the true meaning. In our church, an announcement could be in the bulletin, mentioned during the announcements, and displayed on the screen during the service and it is still missed by most of the congregation or ignored. What can we do to communicate the value of events and programs in our church?
-South was not there. The South city congregation shows up. They are really committed to the church because it is a smaller community there. This meeting was U City only. You would not expect that a congregation that's maybe 60% larger would not be there for a meeting.
If you were there, what made you want to come? If you were not there, what was lacking in the meetings planning that might have helped you to be there?
Multi-Cultural Ministry | By Kirk Ward | 3:41 PM
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Comments
I was there for the free baby-sitting. Just kidding. I was really bummed about the lack of diversity at the meeting. I think that it might help for people that regularly attend those meetings to invite people. I know a personal invitation seems more convincing than one in the bulletin (of course, I invited no one). Maybe more people would come if the meeting was preceded by a potluck.
Posted by: Sarah W at May 15, 2008 4:32 PM
I was there to provide free baby sitting. Maybe more people would come if they knew what fine baby sitters we have these days ;)
In all seriousness, I do like the idea of a potluck, perhaps even having a potluck and our meeting immediately after the Sunday service. Though, on second thougt, I am guessing that would not be good for kiddos and their parents.
Resonating a bit with some of the annoyance I hear in your post, though, Kirk, I think sometimes things are not fixable/doable until the people themselves (ourselves, I often miss meetings) decide something is important to them/us. We have had some good turnouts at prayer meetings. In theory, the turnout for last night's meeting could have been just as good.
For the immigrants, perhaps rides are an issue, which the South City congregation seems to do such better job than we do in the North.
Perhaps, though, it was simply a one-off, as the Brits would say. Here is hoping that is the case.
Posted by: Neil E. Das at May 15, 2008 9:51 PM