Second Week In a Row!!!

Hey, again this isn't a sermon, however I don't promise I wont preach- lets see where my writing takes us, shall we.

I figured that the last picture was successful, so I would post another. Anyway, I have been reading a book on church planting- Breaking the Missional Code- and it has a lot of good advice, but the editing is horrible, which detracts from the message at times. I know I am a terrible editor of my own stuff, like this blog, but I assure you that if I were to have a book published, it would be edited professionally. Anyway, the book has really got me thinking about what it means to be "missional", which is the new buzz word in church planting circles. What the word is supposed to encompass is that one is one mission, that is to say that in daily life one is always looking for ways to share the Gospel, reach out into the community, be salt and light. It is a word that means that we decide to become missionaries right here, right now, in the culture that one lives.

So what does this mean for me, and for Mercyhouse? Well, for one, it means that we are taking an honest look at what we do well, and what we don't. After this, it means deciding of it is worth the effort to practice the things we fail at, or if we should just abandon them. Now you may be asking why abandon anything, and the answer is simple- if we are bad at it, and it is not effective, it is hurting the mission rather than helping it. Now this may not seem immediately obvious, so I am going to give an example.

Last year we tried our hand at child care- and we were terrible. We advertised that we had care for kids, and then really didn't fulfil our promise. We had families come to our service, expecting something that we said we were offering, and then served them not. In hindsight it may have been better to just not offer anything. These families, if they cam, would have had realistic expectations.

This year we are keeping childcare, but we are planning on doing it right. We are working out the details now, but here are a few of the improvements we are going to make:

1. We are going to meet and escort parents to the child care room.
(Last year they kind of had to find it themselves)
2. We are cleaning up the pathway to the childcare
(it is in our basement, and king of horror movie-esque right now, that is all going to change)
3. We are going to offer pagers to parents in case there is a need of Thieu child that we can not meet.
(Last year it was a "trust us" kind of thing, and frankly, we are kind of a shabby rag tag bunch)

So that is one way we are improving and being missional. Now how is this missional? Well, the answer is that we are serving people. We are assuming that the majority of people who are going to come are unchurched, and so we are trying to think like them. What would make me feel comfortable my first time to church? is a question we are asking a lot.

It is my opinion that most people are nervous and expecting a bad time at church if they are not used to going, we are trying to alleve their fears and help them to enjoy themselves and connect with Christians who do not fit the moralistichavenofunvoterepublican mold. This is going to be accomplished many ways, and even child care is part of that. It says to young couples that we care about their needs, and that they matter. SO we are redoing our child care program.

Now, we decided to redo childcare, because we deemed it important, but we are also taking the ax to some programs that are not bearing fruit anymore, or are detracting form the mission- which is to reach the Valley for Christ. I am not really going to list the dead programs, because I want to stay positive, so here are some other things we will be adding to our Sunday Celebration that I am really exited about.

First, we have "professional" greeters. These are people with super outgoing characteristics and make people feel very comfortable very easily. They will be standing in various locations, the front door, the hospitality area, the sanctuary to usher people. They are going to have name tags, and are there to hand out programs, guide people to seats, give directions to our super hard to find men's room, and just say hi. The hope is that this will break down some of the barriers of the unchurched that they might have as they enter out place.

The last thing I am going to write about this week is our hospitality area. We do a great job at hospitality as it is, but we desire to be even better. What other church do you know of that offers free breakfast to all, and a 3 dollar lunch. I know of none around us, but we do. SO how do we make it better? One idea is that we serve people breakfast and coffee. Right no it is all just out on a table in the middle of our fellowship hall. Instead we are going to move it to the wall, make it a semicircle, and have servers behind the table, offering to pour the coffee, tea, etc. and telling people whether it is apple or banana bread. This has the added benefit of adding another human interaction for the unchurched person walking through our doors.

Anyway, more to come on this later. That's all for now.