In recent weeks I have been mentioning some of the things we have been doing at City Road Methodist Church in Birmingham to regenerate our congregation.
For a variety of reasons attendance has fallen over recent years and there was a feeling of demoralisation and discouragement. On some occasions in the summer and early autumn we struggled to get into double figures.
A new team of stewards, together with our Minister, have been pondering how we can encourage more people to attend and engage with the local community.
We undertook two immediate "easy hits": reviewed our external signage and distributed 2000 copies of the official Methodist Connexional leaflet "Journey into faith" together with a local newsletter.
We also thought through how to make our windows that face onto a main road into a shop front for church activities.
It is still early days yet but we have been greatly encouraged. This morning total attendance was 27, if we include the beat police people who popped in for a cup of tea at the end of the service.
Two things seem to be happening. Firstly the signs of activity have encouraged some of our long standing members to come more often. Several have remarked that there seem to be more people around and they like that. Secondly we have had several people who have recently moved to the area joining our services. This appears to be in response to the leafletting.
As I say, it is early days, but it does seem that this initial effort is paying off. There is still much to do. Several members have set up a community choir and we hope this will provide links into the community. In December we have our very first Christmas Fayre for at least forty years. In January we are hosting a District faith sharing course.
Our simple belief is that decline is not inevitable. A long way to go, but some early encouragement. If you are anywhere near Birmingham and currently churchless feel free to join us and be part of the regeneration.
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1 comments:
I can speak with encoutagement of your changes to open up your church as a front to the main road and your outside displays. We used to complain that we were not in a centre with a lot of people passing our church, but we are on the main raod between Reading and Oxford. So we completely changed our fronyage on to this main road,with glass entrance doors and a sloping disablled access which has a long low railing along its length. On this railing we frequently display a very large banner (advertising services, Christmas Fayre and other events) that can easily be read by passing motorists. A young couple saw these banners as they went from their homw in Reading to their parents in Oxfordshire and decided to try worshipping with us. They have been regular for 6 months, have now joined a house group and are offering to help in other ways. It Does work, so be patient.
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