BACK TO CHURCH SUNDAY IN CONSUMER SOCIETY

This by Cranmer's Curate appeared in this week's Church of England Newspaper:

Back to Church Sunday on September 25th was well worth running but it uncovered some hard truths about parish evangelism in a consumer society.

To our parish church in a relatively prosperous commuter village just outside Sheffield I estimate that around 40 people were invited by a congregation of just below that number on a normal Sunday. Those invited included marriage couples, baptism and thanksgiving families and some people our church is in touch with through funeral ministry.

In the event, one member of the church family had a friend to bring. There were five people whom I had invited, two of them to hear their Banns of marriage, and a few fringe people turned up. So our experience with Back to Church Sunday illustrates what hard work evangelism is in a materialistic community where making money and spending it is the main raison d'etre.

Despite the apparent low return on effort expended, there is no question that the event was spiritually beneficial. Those who came found the church friendly and welcoming and the guest speaker's sermon on Jesus' parable of the lost son was excellent.

One of the visitors told me that he was very struck by something the speaker said about the trustworthiness of the Bible. Thank you very much to St Ebbe's Oxford for providing such an outstanding young man to preach the gospel.

And the build-up to Back to Church Sunday was very worthwhile and a great opportunity to highlight evangelism.

But our Back to Church Sunday made me realise why fundraising is an activity to which small churches will turn as a substitute activity for evangelism. A fundraiser where things are on sale is much more in tune with a consumer society than getting the gospel out and makes fewer demands on both the inviters and the invited.

You can generally pack a room with a church or Mothers’ Union fund raiser in our parish, but in terms of value for Christ's Kingdom there is no comparison between an invitation Sunday at which his gospel of eternal salvation is being proclaimed and a charge-for-entry table top sale.