CommunityBBQFunDay
October 30th, 2011
Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Aberfoyle Park, SA
On Sunday 30th October we held “Community BBQ Fun Day”, which was at Our Saviour
Lutheran School oval, next to the church. It’s the third community “Connect” event that
we have run this year. Approximately 450 people came to the day, with a good mix of
school, church and wider community. We were blessed with great weather for the day,
with forecasts of rain threatening on the lead up.
Publicity for the community events happens through three main areasSchool- invites in the form of an A5 flyer in school newsletters, banners on the out-side
of the school and announcements.
Community- letterbox drops of the local area, with a focus on the immediate vicinity
near the church. We try to include this area in any invites. Invites are also given out at
local shopping centres, and in the streets of church members.
Church- invites are given to all church members, with a particular focus on inviting
others- neighbours, friends, workmates (our purpose is not to be entertaining
Christians, rather inviting non- Christians to grow relationships)
We have had good responses from these invites, with many people from outside the
church coming to more than one event.
Core values
We have identified some core values that we keep to- they have helped to guide us in
planning and implementing.
a) Prayer- it is the work of the Holy Spirit to draw people to Jesus, so we firstly go to
God to lead us in every aspect and keep our focus on His purposes. Apart from
Him, we can achieve nothing.
b) Location- events deliberately take place outside of the church. This provides a
“non- threatening” environment for people who would otherwise not consider
coming to a “church” event, helps to facilitate invites from members, and
provides an opportunity outside of Sunday worship.
c) Focus on loving people through actions (and words if needed)
d) Practice “Open crowd” – an open crowd is one where people look outside of
themselves, go outside of our comfort zones to engage and include others. The
opposite- a closed crowd, is one where we interact with our friends or people we
know and feel comfortable with and do not pay attention to people outside of
this.
e) Establishing relationships- so that we may have the opportunity to witness in
some way.
f) Kids, families, intergenerational interaction- games and activities, entertainment,
dance, music, FUN, Food and drink
g) Free event- some things we sell to cover costs, people can come to these events
and spend nothing
h) Inviting non Christians (termed loosely)- Our first natural tenancy can be to
connect with & invite practicing Christians- this is the safe option, but does not
grow God’s kingdom. It is in this area that we have the most potential, and is also
the most challenging. If we were to all practice this, the church could double in
size every two years!
Content of the Longest Lutheran Lunch Day
BBQ ran from 12-4pm
Food provided plus extra bbq’s for B.Y.O. option
Free- sausages and patties, ice blocks
Paid for- coffee van, drinks, donuts
“Family Picnic” atmosphere
Youth band playing music
Free jumping castle
Large group games- such as water balloon volley ball, tug of war,
novelty races
Smaller activities- such as giant jigsaws, stilts, giant snakes and ladders, kite
flying, cricket, kicking a footy.
Intentional follow up
We have a meet and greet group whose roles are: being friendly, engaging people,
looking for opportunities to connect or follow up, gathering stories and complementing
any exist-ing connections. We are in our infancy in this, and are seeking to grow and
train people in this area.
We believe it is more genuine and powerful if the follow up comes from the people who
have done the inviting, rather than someone that is met once at an event, but not yet
known. This culture takes time to grow. Whilst having announcements informing
patrons of facilities, etc we invited them to upcoming remembrance day and Christmas
events.
It is proving difficult to follow these things up without being overbearing, pushy or encroaching on people’s privacy, however any information we gather is proving to be
valua-ble, and we pay close attention to it.
We do not want to give people the message “the real reason we invited you here is to
get you to church”. We do want to give them the message- “we want you to feel loved
and included by a Christian community”
We made up several display boards that advertise upcoming events, and activities that
take place in the church, with many people stopping to read them. We did not advertise
church services, as this lines up with our message. Nothing was handed out.
School
We are blessed to have a primary school as an outreach of the church. Current known
fig-ures report a majority of non-church-going families now at the school with that
figure growing each year.
There has been an overwhelming response from the school to these events, with many
families believing that it is put on by the school, enrolments coming from the events,
and many comments being “we love this community feel”, “ you don’t find this
elsewhere”, or “when is the next one?” There are reports that some school families
invited multiple fami-lies to the event. Combined with many good school initiatives and
actions, the numbers are heading towards capacity. We have a potential of 7+ years to
witness to these families.
I would like to share with you a few stories that have come from the day, so that we
may see how God is at work, and give Him the glory for all of this.
A family that came to our first event “Eat, Drink & Be Merry” were so impressed
with the friendliness of that event that they decided to enrol their daughter at the
school. They also responded to a flyer in their letterbox and invited several other
families to join them at the BBQ. A person in our church recognised them, and told
them about the Storytime, Mini Monets and Playgroup activities that are run by
the school and church.
Friends of a church family have been invited to these events, and have decided to
enrol their child at the school next year. They do not go to church, but the door is
now open to future possibilities.
A lady bought her grandson to the BBQ after seeing the banner on the fence. She
had enjoyed the day and asked about Sunday School and church services.
A young girl came with her family after receiving an invite at her kindy. She knew
one of the girls from our church who will also be starting school at Our Saviour
next year.
One of our youth invited a good friend to church in the morning, he declined the
offer. The invite was then extended to the BBQ, which was accepted. They had a
great time, and when it was mentioned that the reality band at the bbq was also
playing at the outdoors evening worship, he decided to go. It was the first time
this person has experienced Christian worship. He is now considering coming again.
One of our school teachers was talking with some mums in the queue for the
jumping castle. They said they were not yet looking for a school for their toddlers,
but loved the community feel of the day and were really interested in our school.
I hope these stories will encourage many others to engage in their communities
however God leads them to do so, and I look forward to hearing the stories and
thoughts that may encourage us the same.
Blessings
Peter Zilm (Community Evangelist)