Another great Giant Easter Egg Hunt! Over 100 volunteers, 15k eggs, many many many kids, hot dogs, face painting, crafts, bouncy castles, prizes etc. All having a blast!
3 months ago I was praying and heard it will be a good day. It was much better than good.
A few years ago I wrote a booklet titled Explaining Evangelism. (badly edited, poor grammer but my first shot at writing... it sold 10k copies and translated into 3 languages in 1991)
In one chapter I mention the concept of visibility evangelism... it's the consistent, going, sowing, caring, praying, serving component.
Consistently going and sowing can raise your visibility and re-define who you are in your community. We often define ourselves by what we believe. Our communities, on the other hand define us by what we do.
Here are a few tips:
Advertise. During major holiday seasons, use news papers, web-sites, blogs. Develop tickets or invitations to give to your people so they can invite their friends, families or workmates.
Think professional, upbeat, fun, colorful, and memorable. Think about sticky Ideas that stick.
Establish High Impact Community / Church-wide Outreach Events. Our annual Easter Egg Hunt, Summer Community FunFests, Block Parties, 4th of July water giveaway, Turkey's giving away Turkeys, Stuff the Bus, Halloween Funfest and our Christmas Party for the less-served make a huge impact on our community. Last year over 800 people served in some way as we moved out into the community. People who serve others also tend to be more outward focused, more balanced, more caring and more likely to share their faith than those who don't.
Consistency. This is the key to raising your visibility within your community. We have our outreach year planned. We are consistent. We just keep on keeping on. We go. We share. We serve. We care. We seek to be Bringers and Includers. The community now defines us as the pretty good church who actively cares for our community.
Each week people from our community come to the Vineyard to check us out. Many, discover faith then go out to serve. It's the cycle of Sowing, Reaping, and Increasing.
Good deed creates good will that opens hearts to the good news. Rusaw
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