In the summer, it is common for our church to host visiting youth groups. Youth from across the United States come to the Black Hills for work trips, primarily focused on activities at the Pine Ridge Reservation. I don’t know how many conversations I have had with young people from other parts of the country who have told me that their visits to Pine Ridge were life-changing experiences. Sadly, I don’t know many residents of Pine Ridge who would report that their lives have been changed by the visit of folks from out of the area. It is a complex situation, and entrenched poverty is a deep challenge for any society. It would be a good topic for a blog on another day.

Having guests in our building is an opportunity for us to tell part of our story. They ask about our congregation, our mission and our projects. One topic of conversation that always comes up is the huge woodpile in the churchyard. We get asked whether or not that wood is ours. We get asked if we heat the church building with wood. We get asked if we sell firewood. Yes, the wood belongs to the church. No we don’t heat the building with wood. No, we don’t sell firewood. But we do get the opportunity to tell part of the story of the Woodchuck Society and how forming partnerships with our neighbors helps to provide firewood for heating homes.

A wedding at the church this weekend has also provided me an opportunity to speak with several young adults who grew up in our church and now have moved to other parts of the country. They ask about how it is going at the church and what new and exciting things we are doing.

I treasure the opportunities to talk about our congregation and its ministries. Decline is not an uncommon mode for churches in contemporary America. The statistics say that the fastest-growing religion in America is “no religious preference.” Often this does not give any information about the beliefs of the individuals polled, but rather speaks to their practices. They don’t belong to churches. The result is that there are plenty of churches in the country that are suffering decline. Sometimes the decline is a sort of slow and gradual process. Other times it is rather sudden and dramatic. So it is a privilege and a joy to be a part of a congregation that is growing and discovering new avenues of mission and ministry.

I don’t have much passion or interest for many kinds of promotion that are common in other churches. I’m skeptical about advertising campaigns. I’m not too much for spending church funds to rent billboards or place advertisements on television. I don’t have much background in advertising and don’t know much about it, but it seems to me that advertisements are often completely ineffective. It seems like the churches that are most likely to advertise in the newspaper, for example, are the ones that are struggling the most. Only a tiny fraction of our community’s congregations place any kind of ads in the newspaper. It isn’t that I don’t believe in reaching out to others. I think that we need to continue to be growing and attracting new members. It is just that I don’t think that traditional advertising is the best way to tell the church’s story.

What works best, in my opinion, is the people who are involved in the church talking about what makes that involvement meaningful to them. Friends inviting friends is probably our most important evangelism tool. I know that visiting with out-=of-town guests doesn’t increase worship attendance or church membership, but it does give me the opportunity to talk about our church with others. And sometimes those stories make rather circuitous trips. Someone who visits our church has another friend who lives in our community and the story is told. Someone decides to move to our community and a friend tells of a visit to our town and our church. It is not at all uncommon for guests to come to visit our church who tell us of a friend or relative who recommended that they check out our congregation.

The good news of the work of the church seems to prefer non-traditional methods of spreading throughout the community. We are not about bragging or self-promotion. But we are about relationships. Our church is a location of intentional community. And we have that sense of supportive and loving community to offer to others. And community is sorely lacking in contemporary culture.

I spend ten minutes or more yesterday talking with an out of town wedding guest about his quest to find a loving and supporting community. He was partly looking for a community for himself, and partly for community for his children. He had all kinds of notions, some mistaken, about Christian theology and the different beliefs of different churches. He was not inclined to embrace someone else’s doctrine and he had experienced the church as being uncompromising about beliefs. These kinds of conversations are always a bit of a challenge because there can be a perception that our church is soft on theology or operates with out core beliefs and convictions. This is definitely not the case. But we do not practice our faith by imposing our beliefs on others or insisting that our way is the only way. I made the comment, as I often do, that our community is not based on agreement. Our church is made up with members who have many different perspectives on life and faith. We are able to argue amongst ourselves about everything from politics to subtle nuances of the doctrine of the trinity. We have discovered that we don’t have to share the same beliefs to worship together. There is plenty of room in the church for different opinions, different interpretations, and different perspectives.

It is a gift to have the opportunity to talk about our church. It is a greater gift to have a church that is worth talking about.

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