Relaunching a Website

We have just relaunched our website.

It was quite difficult to know what to do.

Some Churches spend thousands on the latest technology. Others don't seem to have a website at all.

I looked across the board at different options and am happy with where we have ended up.

1. The old site was looking a little tired and needed sprucing up a bit.
2. Our providers have been excellent to work with and very cost effective considering what we get.
3. We looked at more complex system and for us we can't really justify the cost. If this was a city based student attracting Church plant I would consider something a bit more intereactive, but we aren't. Some of our folks don't even have email and we don't want to exclude people.
4. I think you can spend a lot on things that don't add value.
5. What we have done is made the podcasting bit a lot more functional, made the whole thing look smarter and reads better.
6. Almost every person who visits our Church has been on the website first. This has always been a strength of our site and something we wanted to build on

So add it all up and a new chapter opens up with our web presence. On Sunday morning a chap was baptised who responded to an Alpha flyer popped through his door.

These things make a difference!

Impacting the Neighbourhood

This post from Marcus Honeysett got me thinking about serving the community and impacting the neighbourhood.

This got me thinking.

What is my "motive"? What is our "involvement"? How far is our "reach"? What would our "community" say about us?

This year has thrown up a few surprises for us with regard to how this Church is perceived.

• Firstly, the county council had a major meeting about youth work and they asked to host it here because we have the "largest youth work in the town", secular, church, or otherwise. We had not told them that. An upshot is in the new year the councillors are coming to speak to our 70+ teenagers about democracy, and our teenagers are going to pray for them and hear a talk about respecting government and what citizenship means (by me!).
  
• Secondly, the county council had a large important public meeting and needed an independent chair, and asked Martin, our lead elder, to chair the meeting.
• Thirdly, the press interest in what we are doing is growing, but more than that, there are now more press stories from other community groups who use our facilities than there are about Church activities.
  
• Fourthly, other people who have been to the Centre have started to use us in their publicity! Take this story about a lady with an Owl here. We started getting press associations and TV companies ringing up to follow the story, yet we have never heard of her and can only assume she came to a meeting here hosted by an outside group!

This subject got me thinking about the "Centre" programme for the last fortnight, outside of Sunday activities. Gosh it has been busy.

Thursday 4th
National Childbirth Trust: 25 people
Newfrontiers regional Leaders: 25 people
Early Years and Childcare Team Christmas Away Day (with lunch): 56 people
Friday 5th
Nursery Education Funding Working Group (with lunch): 11 people
Impact (Youth activities, Youth Alpha): 70 people
Monday 8th
"Outlook" Senior Citizen's Christmas Meal: 40 people.
Lip reading class, 6 people
Greyfriar's Badminton Club: 25 people
Tuesday 9th
Barneytots Christmas Party (with lunch): 90 people
Healthy eating course: 10 people
Wednesday 10th
"Taking Part" Christmas Party (people with learning difficulties / down syndrome). 45 people.
Early Years and Childcare team: 8 people
Thursday 11th
Senior Citizen's Forum meeting with Christmas Lunch: 77 people
Friday 12th
Mental Health Services (with lunch) :15 people
Post funeral gathering for a local resident (with lunch): 40 people
Impact (Youth activities, final week of Youth Alpha): 70 people
Saturday 13th
Kidz Klub Christmas Party (with food): 70 people
Jigsaw Choir Concert in aid of Shrewsbury Ark: Number unknown - over 50?
Monday 15th
Outlook senior citizens: 30 people
Lip reading course: 6 people
Greyfriar's Badminton Club: 25 people
Tuesday 16th
Children's Centre Services Christmas Party (with lunch) 220 people
Wednesday 17th
Mental Health team Christmas Lunch: 35 people
Thursday 18th
Carline Fields (Sheltered Housing) Christmas Dinner: 40 people
Friday 19th
Hazeldine Court (Sheltered Housing) Christmas Dinner: 38 people
Impact (Youth) Christmas Party (with food): 80 people

So excluding any Sunday stuff, we have welcomed 732 people to non church run events, serving them something like 627 lunches. We have welcomed 475 people to Church events - many of them are non church attenders, and 280 of them were also fed.

So I make that 1207 visits, receiving 907 meals, in 14 days, excluding Sunday services.

The aim of this is open hearted service to our community. There is no hard sell. We have Alpha Course posters, and Carol Service flyers, but overall - all this has very little "impact" in terms of souls saved or bums on seats on a Sunday. That is not why we do it.

An elderly lady in the sheltered housing next door told her daughter that she was looking forward her Christmas dinner at Barnabas Centre. Then she died. So the daughter came across, and asked, because her mother had so looked forward to celebrating her Christmas here, could they celebrate her life here instead. That was the highlight of this Christmas for me, to be the place where people come even in sadness, because they knew in life we did them good.

That is a gospel in action that opens the door for effective witness, and earns our right to explain what we believe, because it has already been expressed in love. yet all of them are "them to us" initiatives - reliant on a building, a physical presence and an army of volunteers. I wonder how I could gauge the "us to them" impact of these two weeks?

Christmas is coming!

We have just released our publicity for our Christmas programme.

Here is the quick version!
14th Morning: Family service
21st Morning: Sunday service
21st Evening: Carol Service
25th Morning: Christmas service
28th Morning: Sunday service with baptisms

Then we come onto publicity. This is the situation so far:

2500 "Belle Vue" (the area we are in) Christmas cards delivered through local doors. This includes all Christmas services of the local christian churches in this area, us, Anglican, United Reformed, Methodist, Apostolic and Salvation Army.

Then we have produced 2500 of our own postcards, double sided
The Front:















The Back:















A few years ago a lady who worked for Riverside Press in Market Drayton, Shropshire dropped by with a selection of their products. £68 delivered for 2500 postcards has revolutionised the way we do our publicity. Their website is www.djflyers.co.uk and I cannot recommend them enough. Tell them Dave at Barnabas sent you.

So that means our church congregations the last two sundays have been given flyers. We will give them to our Kidz Klub and Barneytots families. Cell groups have taken them to deliver through doors near to where they meet. Our centre hosts Christmas lunches for several local sheltered housing places and non profit groups and they will have invites at the tables.

We are giving them out like confetti: the shot gun approach. The aim is simple: each person looks at the card and knows we exist. If that is it I am happy. if it causes a conversation then all well and good. If they come, brilliant! One lady in our Church took a handful of Alpha Course postcards earlier this year and put them through her local letterboxes. The evening came and a lady arrived a bit late. "Hi, who has invited you": "oh, I had your invitation through my door". She now regularly attends on Sundays. Now that is worth the £68 on its its own.

At each an every one of the five services over Christmas every person will be given an Alpha Course flyer. There is no better opportunity for witness in our culture than Christmas, and we have already started praying for all these initiatives.