Early Sunday
We recognise our responsibility to share our enjoyment of worship with people outside the Church community, and to bring in those who would value a similar experience of Christian worship. When the new service structure settles in, we will need to consider how to put this into practice.
Mid-morning
We need to be better equipped to share our faith, and would value more teaching that enables us to handle difficult questions relating to faith. We find it easiest to invite visitors into our church when there is a special guest event, or service, addressing a particular, significant issue.
We recognise our individual responsibilities to help visitors to be properly welcomed at our services. And resolve to introduce ourselves to people who we don't know, making good use of opportunities like 'The Peace' and times of informal discussion in the worship.
The mid-morning 'Welcome Team' plans to take on new members and to develop the process by which new members are enabled to settle into the wider community of the church family.
Late Morning
We recognise that we need to develop our skills in sharing our faith with others, being more willing to speak about our experiences of God, while not being critical of other peoples' experiences. It is not our task to explain Christianity, but to reassure people that God loves them as they are and, given the chance, will show himself to them.
Sunday Evening
We plan to bring forward the evening service to 5.00pm, and to use a community minibus to bring people into the church for afternoon tea beforehand.
Godspace
We could produce a simple card about Godspace to give to people. We have numerous contacts, but the group is still in its early days and may need to settle more before it is ready to meet the needs of new members. We need to train up potential leaders who might form new Godspace groups.
Overall
We will continue to promote and develop our 'Oh God!' enquirers' course. Following its recent success at Violet Avenue, Caroline Reed is keen to find more opportunities to take the course into the local community.
We are considering the possibility of developing a 'Discipleship Course' to be used as a second strand of nurture for new, and renewing Christians.
We plan to develop a long term programme that will enable us to talk about their faith more confidently with people outside the church community.