Share is a website which offers how-to advice on starting, developing, and sustaining fresh expressions of church based on shared experiences. Sponsored by Fresh Expressions and ChurchArmy, two organizations based in the United Kingdom which work toward the development and renewal of Christian community, the Share site is a resource for those involved with innovative expressions of church.
Among Share's growing list of resources includes a helpful overview of café-style churches which are growing in popularity in many places. Share looks at a variety of café / church hybrids, including café-style events on church premises, Christian events in commercial cafés, commercial cafés run by Christians, and doing mission within existing cafés.
See the Share website for the full inspiring collection of church café ideas, as well as additional fresh expression takes on rural ministry, workplace church, children's ministry, on-line fresh expressions, and more.
If you are falling short on ideas to attract new people to the church (during the week) you might want to look to what people are doing online.
Digital Photography
Social Networking
Genealogy
In fact, the main group that is extremely active online and are into social networking today are the retiring Baby Boomers. What a great audience to attract to your church. Many of them missed the computer age, or maybe worked in a place with a computer at a "dumb terminal" and only learned what the specific work programs required and nothing more. What a great target audience to attract. Of course there are the seniors who are the biggest buyers of laptops and want to find their old friends...dead or alive! Hey, I am not joking here.
"Christmas Eve - I have seen communion served in a church where there was only one Christmas Eve Service - filled with strangers - most were unused to the ritual of the church - they looked very uncomfortable. I think this leads me to start another thread." CrazyHeart
So what I am wondering is how much of ritual and music and readings and other things should we give up to be welcoming to others who come to the church?
First and foremost, allow me to state unequivocally that we, in The United Church of Canada, need to pastor and minister to our constituency - the folks that have been with us since birth (ours and theirs): The ones who pay the bills; the ones who live out our shared faith in world; the ones who find comfort, challenge and Holy Presence in worship as we have practiced it for many decades.
But, having stated that...allow me to digress.
I was at my local strip mall the other day. As I made my way from the health food store to the ice cream shop, I was not only aware of the irony, but also of the music playing on the speakers. It was Bach...from St. Matthew's Passion, actually. I loved it. It created a tiny perfect Holy Moment for me, in which I was aware of God's Presence, the power of tradition, a sense of past, present and even future. I was, for a moment, part of a glorious moment of praise to God. Ahhhhhhhhhhhmen.
The strip mall was playing that music to keep teenagers from loitering.
A recent article on the website of UK newspaper The Daily Mail reports on a survey of British teens on the importance of God and religion undertaken by Penguin books. The survey was carried out to mark Penguin's publication of controversial novel Killing God by Kevin Brooks.
According to the survey, 66 percent of teens surveyed do not believe a deity exists while 50 percent have never prayed and 16 percent have never been to church. 59 per cent of children believed religion has had a negative influence on the world, 60 percent only go to church for a wedding or christening, yet 91 percent agreed they should treat others the way they wished to be treated themselves.
Both the Church of England and the British Humanist Association have their own takes on these results. To read about them, and form your own opinion, check out the article here.
Since someone recently admonished me to practice what I preach, I'm starting a new thread from the Hate Law & Reporting Abuse . I am convinced, and feel free to disagree, that 90% of the problem is a failure to communicate and not a contravention of the Hate Laws.
"Christians are challenged to live and witness to their faith in all parts of their lives and in every place. I am impressed that those of the Goth Eucharist are working out this challenge; going where only few of the church venture and seeking an expression of the Christian gospel in terms that are distinct and new."
-Right Rev. Robert, Bishop of Whitby
It's dark. There are lots of candles. They play Sisters of Mercy, the Cure, Bauhaus, Cruxshadows, (etc.) during the service. The priest is a Goth. And afterwards instead of having coffee they go to a Goth club down the street. This is the Goth Eucharist at St. Edward King and Martyr church, in Cambridge, England.
You may have heard of churches starting alternative services, from "contemporary" evening services to balance a more traditional morning service, all the way to something as thematically specific as a service featuring the music of U2 (also known as a 'U2charist'). St. Edward's Goth Eucharist follows in this line, translating the gospel and Christian worship into yet another vernacular.
And so we gathered to watch ListenUpTV on Sunday. Well, actually, I was getting ready for Sunday Service, and talking a few minutes to watch on line... my parents were watching at home, a couple of friends were PVRing... and Emerging Spirit, I imagine, was looking forward to getting some of our point of view included in public discussion.
So, last Sunday (or a couple of weeks ago, depending on when this is published), we had seven new folks to church. I'm not bragging, I'm reporting.... (Okay, I'm bragging a little bit).
