Reaching out

I was working with a pastor who was developing ways to communicate to the young adults in her community. At one point she got stumped. In my book, I talk about the fact that younger generations don’t want their churches marketing to them. We’ve been the targets of marketing strategies all of our lives. Most of us are consumer weary and exhausted.

Frustrated, she asked, “If new generations don’t like marketing, how do we reach out to them?”

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got nothing against marketing when we’re getting the word out about a congregation. If you need to let people to know that you’re there, then, by all means, take out advertisements in the newspaper, post handbills at the coffeehouse, host a booth at the county fair, hoist banners in your downtown, and saturate the Internet. Go all out.

It’s just that spreading good news is a whole lot messier than all of that. We need to let people know that the building exists, but we do not need to communicate that we need another warm body in the pew, or another giving unit to meet the budget, or more volunteers for our programs. The most important message is that we care. And there’s no way to convey that message other than doing it. Relaying that depth of interest takes time, and a much deeper, personal investment. Here’s what I try to do, as a pastor.

First, develop the art of storytelling within a community. In our churches, we allow people to form the movement of God into words. The heart of reaching out to people is listening and telling stories. As a pastor, I love hearing different narratives. And I find that some of the deepest moments in our church come when people begin recognize the spiritual struggles in their lives, and then they form them into words. It’s like putting clothes on a ghost–they take these resonant spiritual insights, they identify those points where their lives intersect with God, and they begin to form a vocabulary for those deep stirrings. It’s a powerful process.

Then people learn to tell our community about them. And as they speak, they are forming the story, as the story forms them. The word becomes flesh, and dwells among us, moving about the people. Then the story gets inside of us, and begins to change the way that we see things as well. People get comfortable with their spiritual journey. They have a vocabulary for it. They can talk about it.

Second, listen to the story of your larger community. We do this in different ways: reading the paper, looking at demographics. But nothing’s better than some good, old-fashioned participant observation. Which means you hang out. Eat lunch away from your desk. Write your sermons at the coffee house. Frequent the local bookstore. Take daily walks through the streets surrounding the church. Listen and pray for people. Figure out who’s in your neighborhood, and what they might need.

Third, begin to show the congregation where their stories and the community’s needs intersect. Actually, the members of the church begin to sense this. It’s all very viral. Because soon, people begin to talk to their friends. They can repeat those comfortable and comforting stories. And, the friend will show up. It may take a year after the initial invitation, but she usually does.

If your church is a place where an outsider can slip in the pew for an hour of internal wrestling, if she can mentally question everything that happens, and at the end of it, she knows that’s okay, then the person will attend again. Because, after all, we often talk about the spiritual journey as a matter of “acceptance,” but it’s often much more filled with struggle.

Then, after a good long time, her own story will begin to form in her belly. It’s an extensive, tough, and beautiful process. And one of the great things about being church.

So, what do you do? What have I left out? How do you reach out and form caring connections?