Evangelism

EVANGELISM AND OUTREACH

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Subject: Why not the Yellow Pages?

From: AB

HCDLers:

For years, we have been saying things like: “How can we get networked, how can people find us, when we don’t have a building on the corner and we’re not in the Yellow Pages?” I had a “Jack-Sims-esque” thought the other day while walking to the bus. I’m not sure what I think of it, but I’ll float it anyway:

Why don’t we all start listing our house churches in the Yellow Pages under “House Churches”? Or “Intentional Christian Communities,” for that matter? Why not force the Ma Bells to recognize this reality? Why not put the word out for all to see? Why not make it very public that we exist? Why not make it so that when John-Doe-refugee-Christian moves to a new town or starts having serious doubts about his basilica (sp?) church, that he can easily look up and find in town what house churches are around?

Wouldn’t this go a long way to providing important “visibility” to alternative churches? Why limit ourselves to just word-of-mouthrelational networks (hide the light under bushel baskets)? Why be Luddites when it comes to communicating our existence and availability (I’ll refrain from the phrase “promoting ourselves”)? I have heard of lots of other schemes to advertise the existence of house churches, why not this?

I suppose some kind of ideological purists might think this taints the organic nature of things, or that it’s the first step in a slippery slope. Maybe. But I’m not convinced at the moment.

At the very least, I think a few house churches should experiment with the idea and see how it pans out.

What do people think? Jack Sims would love it. Others? Has anyone tried this?

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From: CD

I think this is a great idea. The only problem I’d have with it is logistical — I wouldn’t want my name and home telephone number listed in the phone book. (I don’t even list my number under my own name.) It seems to me that a group of house churches could easily go together to pay for an extra telephone line into someone’s house and put and answering machine on it. Then, callers could be directed to one or more of the house churches in the group. Of course, I realize that not everyone shares my aversion to having a listed number! On a related topic, I have been talking with some members of our network of house churches about doing some sort of outreach aimed at introducing people to home church. We are thinking of putting an ad in some local papers inviting people to an informational meeting. Then, for anyone who is interested, we would have a series of five or six weekly meetings. During that time, we would behave as a house church. As our teaching, we would do some sort of Bible study or book study on the theological basis for house church. (I know that Rob and Julie Banks have developed a 6-part (I think) Bible study which could be useful.) At the end of that time, we would hope that some of the people would become interested in becoming involved in house church. My prayer would be that there were enough of them to form an entirely new house church, perhaps with the addition of a couple of people from SCC, and that this house church would then become part of our network. For those of you who have tried things along this line, what is your experience? Also, along with AB, I’d be interested in hearing more about people’s reactions to being listed in the yellow pages.

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From: AB

Dear CD: Sounds great too. I would love to hear how it works out. Down here in the South, our Durham paper has a Religion section on Saturdays (with a completely institutional-church mentality driving it, of course). Perhaps that would be a good place to advertise (along with all the grinning faces of Pentecostal pastors)? Of course, in the secularized North, you don’t have Religion sections, do you? Where in what paper would you promote this? AB

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From:

CD wrote:

On a related topic, I have been talking with some members of our network of house churches about doing some sort of outreach aimed at introducing people to home church. We are thinking of putting an ad in some local papers inviting people to an informational meeting. Then, for …

AB wrote:

Sounds great too. I would love to hear how it works out. Down here in the South, our Durham paper has a Religion section on Saturdays (with a completely institutional-church mentality driving it, of course). Perhaps> that would be a good place to advertise (along with all the grinning faces Pentecostal pastors)? Of course, in the secularized North, you don’t have Religion sections, do you? Where in what paper would you promote this?

CD wrote:

Yes, AB, as you know, things are a bit different up here than in the south. We have tentatively discussed placing ads in the _Boston Phoenix_ (which as you know but others may not, is a slightly counter-cultural arts-oriented paper), in our local suburban papers, in a local Christian paper dedicated to networking Christians, and in a newsletter for home schoolers. I would also anticipate that we would do some sort of advertising at local colleges, though, as others have already mentioned, college kids can be a mixed blessing for house churches. I sort of envisage the ad being entitle “THE CHURCH COMES HOME”. One thing I’ve been thinking about, though, is where we should have the first meeting. While I would be perfectly willing to have it at my house (and I’m sure other SCC people would, as well), I think that would not be a particularly good idea. I can imagine that there are many people who might be interested in coming to an informational meeting if it were held in a public place, but who would not go to a private home. (If I were not already involved in a home church, *I* would be one of those people.)

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From: EF

This is in response to AB’s post about advertising or networking in the yellow pages. He’ll probably term me a “purist”, but here goes anyway. I think the inherent problem with putting an ad in the yellow pages under home church is that we’re identifying ourselves with the “church”, which is exactly what we’re trying to get away from. When people look in the yellow pages they’re looking for a building. We need to have faith that God will place people in the path of our lives that are searching for home church (whether they know it or not) and spend time with those people in our lives to develop relationships with them, which will in turn, develop into devotion and true community. We have to have faith that God, not the yellow pages, will bring these people who are seeking into the path of our everyday life, as we’re part of the world. This will allow people to see community and desire it instead of continuing their search for a building. It is my belief that yellow pages will simply bring curious onlookers that will disrupt the flow and will end up taking up much of the fellowship time with explanations of what’s happening instead of experiencing what’s happening. Besides, we’re not about numbers, which is the main goal of advertising, we’re about relationships and community. I think advertising in the yellow pages looks good in a theoretical sense because it makes us look as though we’re more like other denominations. When the phone calls come in how are we going to explain what it is we do when it’s not explanatory, it’s doing. Unless we come up with some kind of trite response to explain something that only God ordains, we miss what God would have for each one of our home groups. I realize this is probably not the most popular opinion after the enthusiasm I’ve seen in response to the post, but I think it’s one that needs to be weighed against the enthusiasm of the other posts. Hope I didn’t step on too many toes

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From: GH

I will weigh in on the side of EF, but I can see some validity in publicity when a new house church is starting. But EF thoughts on interpersonal relationships being part of the glue that holds us together seems important. I’m curious what others like Summit Fellowships and other groupings of home churches do. Perhaps, our Australian sisters and brothers can help us, too.

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From: IJ

Dear AB, I don’t think the ‘yellow pages’ is a dumb idea. I’ll put it to a pastoral meeting we’re having on Saturday and see what the response is. Not everyone in a given area would need to be listed. Just someone who is willing to be the contact. We used to advertise in the local newspaper (in Canberra, that is) but I don’t know that we ever got any serious respondents. That, however, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try this one. MY husband has even toyed with the idea of putting up an advertisement on the community notice board in our local ‘alternative’ grocery store! IJ.

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From: IJ Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 01:52:20 -0500

Another possibility would be a 1-800-number. Cook Barela in Riverside County has a brochure which he leaves in doctors’ rooms, pins on supermarket boards, puts in letter boxes etc. which lists a 1-800-number. I don’t know how you go about that or what the costs are. IJ.

From: AB Date:

Thanks for your thoughts. You didn’t step on my toes. I think empirically you could very well turn out to be correct. I guess I would like to know that for sure, however. As I said in my first post, I’m not particularly convinced about this. I could be persuaded that this is a bad idea this afternoon. Still, for the sake of thorough discussion, let me try to answer some of your concerns: I wonder if there aren’t people out there who are looking for more than just a building. Aren’t we kind of assuming that? I think there are more than a few who are looking for community, an alternative–even if they’re not entirely clear on what that should/could look like and why. And anyway, wouldn’t the people who are looking for just a building call one of the 100s of other churches listed, not the house church listing? There could very well be a filtering effect, depending on how the listing was done. Maybe the listing would have to be written in a way that made it real clear this was an _alternative_ church. Also, I don’t think we’re trying to get away from “the church.” At least I’m not. I think we should try to redefine it. To tear down the old and rebuild a new. (Or is this just a difference in semantics?) In my mind, putting a listing in the Yellow Pages does not necessarily mean capitulating to the church system as it is, but, perhaps, inserting a *subversive* presence into the system and seeing what happens. We wouldn’t have to be trying to look like other denominations; in fact, we could write entries that were quite “in your face” if we wanted (not sure how much the Y.Ps. censure [sp?] ads). [“House Church: no building, no clergy, no denomination, no easy ride” whatever???] Just the fact that we would force the Ma Bells to create an entry not defined by denominational identities would strike a blow at denominationalism, eh? Furthermore, I’m not sure putting ads in the Yellow Pages contradicts relying on God to put people in our paths. There are lots of ways that can happen. Lots of channels God can use, perhaps even including the Yellow Pages. No? When the phone calls come in? Good question. I can get pretty grumpy when the phone rings in the middle of dinner from someone looking for a house church in Topeka, Kansas. Still, perhaps one person in a home church or community could be designated to take these people and talk with them, filter in/out the appropriate ones, etc. It would be a chore, for sure. Still, I wonder if there aren’t Christian refugees out there who need to get connected to house church who aren’t part of my or your relational network. I know there are. Is this lack of faith in God? Why not just use our heads and opportunities to get the word out? After very brief explanation, just to filter out the no-way people, then let them come and _experience_. Hopefully, they would come in trickles, not droves. And you don’t want house church to become a show. But we also need to be ready to receive/show interested folks (like in Robert’s book, _Going to Church in the 1st Century_). Not about numbers? I guess I would say we’re not at all _primarily_ about numbers. Sure. But we are about numbers, in the sense of wanting to spread the Word far and wide and making this alternative church life a widespread reality. At least some of us are. That’s a different attitude toward numbers than just “let’s get big so we can be proud of ourselves,” I think. Overall, I think we need to strike a delicate balance between our emphasis on experience/inwardness/organic, etc. and proclamation/outwardness/using existing channels of communication creatively, etc. We don’t want to ape Madison Avenue. At the same time, we don’t want to mimic the Amish (by my lights, at least). If so, then what does this say about use of Yellow Pages? Any more thoughts/experiences out there on this one?

From: KL

Hello Friends, I really don’t believe that the yellow pages are inherently good or evil. But it is probably one thing in an extremely long “list” that any fellowship should prayerfully consider when pondering the extent of their “visibility” in their community. Personally, we have never done it here. The reasons are probably a combination of convictions against marketing and promotion arrived at by both God’s leading and our own “tainted” attitudes. For whatever reason we feel that remaining, for the most part, underground best fits what we perceive to be God’s calling upon this particular fellowship. That is what I believe to be one of the beauties of home church. We are indigenous and able to seek what best fits God’s will for us. Other HC’s may differ, because there are different people with different gifts represented there. Praise God that there is NO denominational board requiring or even suggesting what we should do. But, I also praise God for relational ties with other HC’s that gives us accountability by dialoging with us concerning possibilities we may be missing. (or could that be avoiding) Now back to the point, I hope. A major reason we do not use the “let your fingers do the walking” approach is that we see that most every church in history that has thrived has been underground in nature. Including the original and early church, and China now. In early church times believers did not even dare to identify themselves in public, many drew in the sand with their feet to make their connections. (see ichthus) Even in saying this I recognize my series of compromises: I send newsletters, I’m helping “promote” the next HC “conference”, hey I am even online in public right now. We even used to list ourselves in the religion section of our local paper with the regular “churches” and their scheduled services. In 3 1/2 years we had one, yes one, call; and they hung up on us because we didn’t offer programs. Wow, it seems like I am rambling. I apologize if I have. I close with this exhortation though: Follow your convictions as fellowships in this and all matters, and at all cost remain indigenous while remaining totally true to the Lord. Hope to talk more about our feminine sides later. Love to all.

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From: MN

KL, After hearing the pros and cons, I would tend to agree with you that Yellow Pages could be a good way of reaching folk that can be brought into fellowship in a house church. As you say, the ad should be effective at filtering in people who are genuinely interested. Otherwise, it could become a distraction. I would agree that advertising can be done with pure motives. As you know, many churches in our area operate 24-hour prayer lines that are advertised in the daily paper. Without passing judgement on that, it is interesting to see how the media and teleunications technology have been used by some churches. Electronic news-lists may also present opportunities for getting the word out. I’d be interested to see any examples of ads that people have used, or contemplate using. Perhaps this forum could be a sounding board for them. Seems like the positive elements of house church life should be stressed foremost, and secondarily the anti-churchianity aspects.

From: CD

MN wrote:

It seems like the positive elements of house church life should be stressed foremost, and secondarily the anti-churchianity aspects. AMEN! ——————————

From: OP

I have been part of Quaker meeting that met in homes that choose to place yellow page ads. I did not find much harm in the yellow page ads, but they were not particularly effective in drawing new people to Meeting. The majority of calls received were of the type: “I am Quaker traveling to Montana and i need $100 to repair my car.” The only problem was you had difficulty actually seeing the car that needed to be repaired and if you phoned the number listed for the Methodist Church they had also been phoned by the same person but to them he was a Methodist. Probably the second most common type of call was someone phoning every church in town letting them know that their church had a live manager scene (or whatever) this week and you all could come to their service or meeting. You may or may not care to participate in these ‘ecumenical’ events. We found other types of advertising more effective in drawing people from the area. We could provide many of these more information about ourselves than we were able to afford to place in the yellow pages. An article about ourselves or an activity that we were having was generally better than a weekly listing of our meeting name and phone number. To attract people from Quaker meetings in other areas that moved to the area or were visiting in the area listings in Quaker directories were most effective. Being generally part of groups with little money we generally preferred to do things that got our name out to people that might be interested without cost. In some areas it is quite easy to get radio stations, newspapers, and the like to print things for free, especially if you are a new group. If their were areas which you held common opinions letters to the editor we found could get published even if our press releases would be ignored (In Quaker meetings we usually wrote on peace and social justice issues). I would recommend that before a home church decided to list themselves in the yellow pages they contact one of the small churches in the area and find out how effective yellow page ads are for them. (They likely are included in the yellow pages because they had to get a business line for the Church building and a single line entry in the yellow pages is included automatically–> the rules on this sort of thing have varied as i have moved around the country).

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From: QR

Having thought a bit about this “yellow pages” business I guess I don’t see much wrong with the idea although I’m not sure how effective it will be. Personally, I view the need to get the “home body” concept out to the community as a part of a broader need make the church visible. Being in house churches isn’t about a siege mentality where we lick our wounds or look with disdain at the rest of Christendom or even just deepen our fellowship. It is about making the incarnate Christ accessible to the world. The church is His body (insofar as it is relationally strong and vibrant) and we need to take it to every neighborhood in the city. Most of us know that can’t be done effectively unless we expand our vision beyond buildings and programs and move outside of the old paradigms. A friend of mine put it plainly when he said that our vision must abandon the old “church growth” model and embrace the idea of “church multiplication”. To do that means that we need to give some attention to our place as house-based communities in the broader context of our city and consider how to multiply the body of Christ into every neighborhood. The yellow pages might be one way to establish an “outer directed” dimension to our relationship, but I wonder if there aren’t other, perhaps more effective, ways as well. At Summit, most of our contact with new people has been through word of mouth. We have, however, maintained an “open church” kind of meeting on Saturday nights in the basement of a “church building” (I think CD might be right about some people not being willing to go to a home at first). We worship, pray, share the word, sometimes even have some of our musical types cut loose with a concert of sorts, and introduce the concept of community and small group fellowship and try to encourage folks to look at church life from a different vantage point. That gathering also gives the house churches in the network a place to connect, though not too many of them do on a regular basis. From that gathering we offer a “class” called the Way and Work of the Church that spans a six segment cycle of material that explains concepts of covenant and commitment and tries to deal with some of the nuts and bolts of “church life in the living room”. We try to emphasize the concept of dying to self and loving sacrificially. In other words we ask them to join “the church of the living dead!” Another thing that I think might be effective is to carry our relationships out into the world as servants. There is something about a group of people that give of themselves to serve others that is intriguing to the world of believers and non-believers alike. To be visible in this way is to demonstrate our love, which Jesus said was the way that the world would know that we were His disciples. In the servant’s arena we can make lots of contacts with others, thus implementing the most effective advertising plan of all: the personal invitation. GH was curious about what we were doing, and that sums it up. I have to admit, though, as I reread what I just wrote, that we don’t have it anywhere near as together as it may sound! One thing I’ll say about house churches: they are anything but a well oiled machine. Talk to us next week and all this may be different!

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From: CD

QR wrote:

At Summit, most of our contact with new people has been through word of > mouth. We have, however, maintained an “open church” kind of meeting on > Saturday nights in the basement of a “church building” (I think CD might> be right about some people not being willing to go to a home at first). We> worship, pray, share the word, sometimes even have some of our musical types cut loose with a concert of sorts, and introduce the concept of community and small group fellowship and try to encourage folks to look at church life from a different vantage point. That gathering also gives the house churches in the network a place to connect, though not too many of them do on a regular basis.

QR, How do you attract people to this meeting? Is it solely word of mouth, or do you do any advertising? Do you have some sort of core group of people who have committed themselves to coming every Saturday? If so, how big is this group? On average, how many people do you have at these meetings, and what percentage of them are from outside your network of home churches? This sounds like an interesting idea to me.

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From: QR

Outreach meeting. CD, You asked about the “introduction to house church” meeting that we do. I’ll try to answer the questions in order.

1. How do we attract people? Word of mouth nearly always. We have a fairly large contingent of “alternative types” (you know, with nose rings, purple hair, etc.) and they have an active grapevine. They pose challenges for house church formation, but their interest is encouraged. The only thing by way of advertising that we have done was when a brother who does music had a kind of concert and put out a flyer to a bunch of folks at a local bible school and elsewhere, but that was his own doing and not the strategy of the network.

2. Do we have a core group that is committed to Saturday nights? By the way, I have taken to calling the gathering, “CPR”, for Celebration, Proclamation and Reunion. Nobody else does, but I think it’s cute! Some nights it feels like real CPR is needed, but that’s another story. We do have a core group of 3-5 who are regulars including one who is gifted in following the leading of the Spirit in music. His passion is for getting as many people involved musically as possible. One night I came in late, and he had coaxed six guitars, two tambourines, three drums and numerous “chicken shakes” into the celebration. It may not have been well orchestrated, but it was a joyful noise and there were lots of people involved!

3. How many come to the group and how many from outside the network? Hmmm. The attendance varies from about 15 on low nights and 50 or so at other times. On the night of the “concert” we probably had about 75, but that was not normal at all. There are quite a number of these that are not involved in a particular house church, though few are involved in traditional ones, either, except as occasional drop-ins. These are the ones that we are encouraging toward community and commitment. Most of the people that come are the disenfranchised for whom a paradigm shift isn’t a problem. I would like to see that change, Lord willing. Recently, we talked with one of the house churches that we call “The Clergy” (because they used to be associated with a Christian alternative rock band by that name) and proposed that they take responsibility for the Saturday night gathering. It may begin to take on the feel of a coffee house. I am concerned that this gathering NOT be strictly counter-culture so I’m going to try to make my input part of the planning. I’ll keep you posted (literally) on how this all comes together. By the way, CD, I sent a copy of our newsletter, The Gathering, to ST, and I believe, also to AB. If you make connections with them you might be able to get a feel for some this from that as well. Hope this answers your questions. Shalom!

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From: UV

I’m catching up on my email and found the yellow pages discussion quite interesting. We have been in the yellow pages since our beginnings and never thought of it as unusual. Theologically there are probably things that could be discussed, but no more or less for me than participating on the internet. Our circumstances are somewhat unique. We started out as a “traditional” Mennonite church plant and moved to house church model. We remain connected to much that is Mennonite/Anabaptist and in our area are a clear alternative to the other Mennonite churches in the area, and advertising has brought us the following things: 1) One solid family every couple years, generally Mennonite or interested in that specific faith understanding (which started out as house churches, after all). 2) Perhaps one call per week from someone who needs help. It’s up to me to discern whether we can or should. Usually, I refer them to appropriate service agencies, some of which our church has contributed to. 3) Occasional calls from people who want to know what to do with their too rapidly expanding Amish Friendship Bread Recipe or simple dress patterns, but also from people with genuine theological or practical faith concerns, and they recognize us as having a different perspective. These people have usually journeyed with us until their problem is solved or they are not in agreement with how we are and do. The issue of bringing strangers into our homes is an important one. To this point we have spoken several times on the phone, met at least once in a public place and then invited someone to the meeting. Generally, I think Yellow Pages advertising makes a statement that is important for the group to work through. Yellow Pages advertising is not very effective (one solid family every couple of years), but we would not have gotten those families otherwise, so we’ve always continued it. If I decided I wasn’t willing to have the church phone in our home, another decision might be made.

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From: WX

It’s nice to see that there are others of Mennonite heritage besides myself who have strayed outside the Fresno boundaries (just kidding) – Just wanted to say thanks for sharing – sometimes I miss the shared theology – haven’t found a group here in San Diego yet – Love in Him.

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From: IJ

Dear WX, You may be interested in the HC workshop in Costa Mesa on Saturday, Jan.20th, as a possible means of connecting with others in your area. If you are unable to come, we could keep a look out for other groups in your area, if you like? Would you like me to send you a brochure? If so, please send me your postal address and I’ll get one to you a.s.a.p. Shalom, IJ.

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Last updated 12/28/97

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