• 25 Questions for people who want to make churches grow

    1. Do you have a decent church website?
    2. Is it up to date?
    3. Is it responsive – ie does it work on mobile phones?
    4. Does your own online profile feature your ideas and hopes and dreams other than a desire for people to turn up to church?
    5. Do you know what you are doing with twitter and facebook?
    6. Who could you learn more about social media from?
    7. Do you have a compelling reason why people should come to your church other than where it is or what denomination it belongs to?
    8. Can everyone in the church tell you in one sentence what that compelling reason is?
    9. What is your beginners’ course like?
    10. What comes after the beginners’ course?
    11. Do people like the preaching?
    12. Do people enjoy the music?
    13. Have you dealt with conflicts from the past?
    14. Are the people friendly?
    15. Do you have any new groups starting soon?
    16. Do you talk about making the world a better place?
    17. How will people experience joy if they come to your congregation?
    18. If someone from your past turned up unexpectedly at worship how would it make you feel?
    19. How do you identify newcomers and what do you offer them?
    20. What problems will arise if you do grow and how will you deal with them?
    21. Do claims that you welcome everyone stop you working at welcoming those who traditionally find it hard to find a home in church?
    22. Do you use language that is inclusive of everyone?
    23. How do you know?
    24. Is there any identifiable group of people that you can’t explicitly say are welcome because of how an individual or group in the congregation will react?
    25. Do you want to grow or not?

19 responses to “Back to work”

  1. Kimberly Avatar

    I’ve been trying to get the last line of each verse to scan better in the absence of the ‘O’ (which is hidden in the vocative, but well hidden indeed since deus is an irregular vocative…)

    perhaps,

    care deus, cum ba ia — ?

  2. Zebadee Avatar
    Zebadee

    Kimberley,

    The time spent feeding you all those fudge doughnuts was certainly not wasted

  3. Moyra Avatar
    Moyra

    How did we get from Kum by Yah, or even Cum ba ia, to fudge doughnuts?

  4. Kimberly Avatar

    Moyra, you have to realise that fudge doughnuts are Zebadee’s equivalent of Mornington Crescent. With enough ingenuity, a link is always possible.

    (It’s a St Andrews thing…)

  5. Moyra Avatar
    Moyra

    I understand….

  6. Sarah SSM Avatar
    Sarah SSM

    I’m sure that there is something holy about fudge doughnuts. Holey, anyway. Come by here, my Lord, we have fudge doughnuts?

    Unfortunately, I live in a convent not sufficiently hol(e)y to have them. Too bad. Nor do we have cum ba ia around a candle, but perhaps Compline counts? I’ll suggest to our Superior that we do cum ba ia for our Compline hymn Tuesday. I’m sure she’d be thrilled (Kimberly can comment on that, I’m sure, as they are acquainted).

    I’m sure someone could come up with an appropriate analysis of cum ba ia from a hermeneutic related to fudge donuts and liberation theology…

  7. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    personally, I’m not sure that I have ever tasted a fudge doughnut. I’ m sure I have no idea what you are all talking about.

  8. Kimberly Avatar

    No, Kelvin. You have never bought a fudge doughnut. That’s not the same thing.

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