Idea of the Week – TWENTYTHREE

Design a simple welcome pack for your church. Include photo’s of people and activities, not buildings and give current information about what your shared values and mission are, rather than your churches history and doctrinal statements – People can encounter that later!

Idea of the Week – THIRTEEN

How do local people hear about events at your church? Consider leafleting all houses within walking distance of your church.

Idea of the Week – TWELVE

Listen or read your weekly church notices, do they contain jargon or abbreviations, or things like ‘Bible Study will be at the usual time’? Make sure all your forms of weekly communication are understandable and interesting to the first time visitor.

church, reformed, united

First and foremost we are about being effective, contextual local churches, seeking to make a difference for Christ’s sake. So our name should say we are a church!

Secondly, although local is the primary point of mission, I do not believe we are a loose collection of independent churches, but a group of churches that recognise the equal importance of our interdependence, that we can achieve more together than apart. Also, we share our Reformed history, and need to learn together how to highlight our Reformed principles for our new age. And in our consumerist, media age we need a robust national identity and brand. Our identity/brand, (in part), is being the Reformed Church.

Thirdly, our identity/brand is still Unit(ed)(ing)! Our ecumenical ideals have not changed, but the landscape has. As a distinct, reformed, progressive mainline church, we are committed to working with others whenever possible, locally, nationally, or internationally.

So we are a Church, Reformed and United. Any ideas for a cracking good name?

the unlikely evangelist

Core Values?

At a recent conference at The Windermere Centre concerning the future of the United Reformed Church, we were posed the question by a group of professionals from an advertising agencey, ‘What are the Core Values’ of the United Reformed Church’? In other words, what is our identity and purpose?

The discussions which followed, you may be surprised to learn, were very focused and harmonious! There were no theological splits or arguments, lots of ideas, but through which I feel four clear themes emerged as our Core Values.

This list of values is not to say that they are unique to the URC, nor that we do them better than other traditions, but that they are precious to us and we feel, at our best, we do them well and with greater emphasis than most.

The Core Values identified are:

A Radical Welcome
- welcome, fellowship, no one turned away from our churches.
A Place to Think
- questions, doubts, fears and a safe place to exoplore
A Place of Change
- Reformed and Always Reforming is still our distinct driving force
A Passion for Justice
- Fairtrade, Drop the Debt, Make Poverty History – define who we are!

Implied within the four is our unique committment to work with other churches and partner organisations whenever possible, but we were also clear that ecumenical partnerships would no longer hold us back when our way forward was clear.

The United Reformed Church – Re-invented? No! Just Re-defined!

the unlikely evangelist

Which Way Now?

As I have said in previous posts, two key questions the United Reformed Church must address are, what is our identity and what is our purpose? Or to put it another way, in the form that others may ask us, ‘Who are you?’ and ‘What do you do?’

The United Reformed Church has a severe loss of identity and purpose, which though disabling, may be by design. Those within the church who still believe our short term goals should be further organic union, particularly at local level, envisage a church which fades away as a distinct denomination and simply joins with whoever is most appropriate locally.

However, another option is to re-invent ourselves as a distinct ‘brand’. A small, reformed church, mainline AND progressive. Comfortable being itself, yet still wholly committed to ecumenical working wherever appropriate.

There seems to be two clear directions before us, I know which one I favour and believe will bear the more fruit.

Which do you favour? I’d really appreciate your comments and posts before I do more work/thinking in this area.

Finally, to aid your deliberations, below are excerpts from this years Catch the Vision report. Enjoy!

the unlikely evangelist

 

 

Catch the Vision Report 2006

 

 

 

There are no unity schemes on the far or near horizon. For thirty years the driving dynamic of the United Reformed Church has been unity. It has made us a movement, a pilgrimage, a people of no abiding city. But is God now asking something extra of us? Are we now being asked to balance our willingness to ‘die’ with a passion for ‘life’ and mission? CtheV 2006, 2.6

In a world where calls for unity receive no positive response, we could opt for the ‘homeopathic’ form of ecumenism. This is the ‘dilute until no one knows you’re there’ option, and it has a certain validity. Well, it says, pull down the shutters. That was an interesting experiment. Let’s sell off the silver and throw in our lot with the parish church or the Baptist meeting and strengthen the Christian presence. CtheV 2006, 2.7

Or we could opt for the ‘passion fruit concentrate’ version of ecumenism. That says, we might be a peculiar flavour, but the drinks cabinet would be much worse off without it. CtheV 2006, 2.8

‘We are not persuaded that our particular offering to the future great church and indeed to the future of Christian witness in our three nations will be best served by dilution’. CtheV 2006, 2.9

Historically we know about living a radical witness, … we know about reconciling diversity. We know what it is to be captivated by Scripture and have our lives turned upside down. It happens week by week and month by month. It’s electric and wonderful, and we don’t know why we don’t shout about it. We might be an odd flavour, but we’re a catchy one. People might get to like us. CtheV 2006, 2.10

Christ’s gift is not that we are either ‘united’ or ‘reformed’, but that we are ‘united and reformed’. CtheV 2006, 2.11

Let’s not be ashamed about being here. Let’s be ourselves. Let’s be glad to be ourselves. Let’s not apologise for being the United Reformed Church. Let’s celebrate God’s gifts, and think about possibilities and mission and growth. Let’s get confident, secure in the gospel. Our ultimate unity lies there after all, CtheV 2006, 2.12

[We see] both a God-given opportunity to leave behind the evangelical-liberal divide, and the possibility of a process of renewal which could gather the church into a community of difference makers for Christ’s sake. We have seen a vision. We intend to follow it, and make it the key feature of ‘Catch the Vision’ 2007. CtheV 2006, 4.5

Bags for Life!

On a blog about evangelism you may be surprised at a post about bags! But these are not just any bags, they can help you tell the story of the FIVE Marks of Mission!

I’ll explain. It’s the current big thing in supermarkets as they get all environmentally friendly to encourage us to stop using so many plastic carrier bags. First, all the big chains offered sturdier plastic bags that could be kept and reused, but now many stores are selling Jute or Canvas bags, which will last much longer and don’t involve that nasty plastic stuff at all.

Great, but what’s this to do with evangelism or the FIVE Marks of Mission?

Our local church had the idea of producing a Jute or Canvas bag with our church Logo on it. Not that this alone would ensure revival broke out, but would be just one small part of a strategy of raising awareness of the existence of the United Reformed Church. (see ’Logo’s and Logos‘) However, as the planning for the project developed, several other ideas and considerations came into play. Could the material the bag is made of not only be something other than plastic, but could it be Fairtrade? If yes, should we put the Fairtrade logo on the bag as a witness to our support of that initiative? After all our church is very concerned and in involved with justice issues.

So, our simple bag idea had grown into something much more significant. A bag which tells the story, or rather is an aid to us sharing the story of the FIVE Marks of Mission.

So, here it is!

Imagine yourself shopping with this bag and someone asks you either about The United Reformed Church or Fairtrade. What can you share with them? You could share something about our church, what it is to be United, what it is to be Reformed and how Church is a group of people committed to God and each other, concerned with issues of Justice, Peace and Love.

If people want an example, flip the bag over and share something about the Fairtrade Movement, a real tangible way of explaining our faith.

Then point out how the bag itself represents the churches commitment to caring for the environment, the world that we believe God made and entrusted to us to be its stewards.

Finally, you could let people know that the bags are made by a company based in London and India, who help get people off the streets and into work making these bags in good conditions and for a fair wage.

In just a couple of minutes you will have shared with someone the FIVE Marks of Mission and what your faith means to you.

TREASURE - God’s world, by using less plastic bags
TRANSFORM - a little part of the world through Fairtrade
TEND - for a small number of people in India who needed help
TELL - of what it is to be the United Reformed Church
and in doing all this
TEACH - a little bit of what it means to follow Jesus

You won’t have a conversation like this every time you shop, but even if it just happens a couple of times, as TESCO says, Every Little Helps!

the unlikely evangelist

Logo’s and Logos

Do you recognise this ‘logo’? Yes, I know it’s a cross, but do you know which denomination it represents?

Well unless you are a member of this church or a close ecumenical partner I suspect not. And even if you do I’m sure you’ll agree it’s not as widely recognised in society as say the ‘Golden Arches’ of McDonald’s or the or the Nike ‘Swoosh’!

In my role as ‘Evangelism Advocate’ for the South Area of the North Western Synod I’ve been pondering the lack of identity of the United Reformed Church. Not that for one minute I’m suggesting that my take on evangelism is all about promoting church and swelling numbers of Sunday morning attendees. Sharing the Good News is the prime concern of an evangelist. However, I do think identity is an essential aspect of promoting any message in our media savvy world. We need to have concern for logo’s as well as Logos!

It’s something we’re not too good at, and as such it sometimes feels like The United Reformed Church is one of the best kept secrets of church life in this country, but as David Cornick put’s it in his last ‘Catch the Vision’ report. ‘We might be a peculiar flavour, but the drinks cabinet would be much worse off without it’! The United Reformed Church still has much to offer, and could well be (or become) the church that some people are clearly searching for.

Now I also hope it’s obvious that I am not saying all we in The United Reformed Church have to do is give our notice boards a lick of paint and stick our logo everywhere. But I am strongly advocating that a recognisable brand image will help us in our evangelistic task and is a relatively easy thing for our churches to do. I am convinced that part of our ‘Catch the Vision’ strategy needs to be ensuring The United Reformed Church becomes something like a household name, with an instantly recognisable brand image.

However, along side a rebranding exercise needs to be considerable work on our identity and purpose as a church, both as a denomination and in each local setting.  The United Church of Christ in the USA have begun work in this area with their ‘God is Still Speaking’ campaign, which manages to proclaim, not primarily the UCC but the Good News of the Gospel of belief in a God who welcomes everyone. They achieve this primarily with just a simple and easily recognised logo, and an amusing tag line, which are both firmly based on a radical engagement with the Word (or Logos) of God. Do visit their website and let me know what you think.

All this talk of logo’s and Logos is by way of introduction of what I hope will be one of the central themes of this blog, the need for our churches to rediscover their Identity and Purpose. Everyone from Rick Warren to David Peel are clearly pointing out that this is the first task of reviving a church for its evangelistic task. This is obviously an area I hope to do a lot of blogging about in the future, so visit again and share your thoughts and stories! But for now, go and take a look at your church notice board and see if it says what you would like to be said about your church!

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To download the URC logo, click here

Or for a lighter look at this issue, follow these links from CartoonChurch.com  ‘Church Marketing‘ and ‘The problem with the church‘