Friday, January 24, 2003

By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

"The end of your search for a friendly church."

No, that one has been used over and over.

"Where the distance is worth the difference."

Nope. Overused to the extreme.

"What is missing in ch_ _ ch? U R."

Oh, please.

"The small church with the big heart."

Okay, I'm getting desperate here. At least that's what I was thinking when I was designing a new church ad for this newspaper last week.

Church ads are funny things. Pastors who place ads are trying to convey a message or an image about their church. They (and I) attempt to present something in the ad that will single their church out from all the rest of the hundreds of other churches in the community.

That's not a bad thing. Most churches really are trying their best to fulfill their mission and are trying to grow to the next level. It's not always easy to be original and it's often a difficult task to design an advertisement that will capture the message and spirit that the church wishes to convey.

When our church first started, six years ago, a line in our ads announced that we were "charismatic, evangelical, and liturgical/sacramental." That generally elicited several types of responses. One was, "Huh?" It seems that most churches are either "charismatic," are "evangelical," or are "liturgical/sacramental," not all three. Folks couldn't envision how that was possible. Some charismatics thoughts we weren't charismatic enough and some liturgical/sacramental people considered us to be not nearly liturgical/sacramental enough. Others had no idea what any of those three terms meant. To them, we were speaking in unknown tongues by using those terms. We weren't speaking a language they understood.

A later ad proclaimed that we desired to "bring the message, worship and power of the ancient church to a new generation." Better, perhaps, but most people, even most American Christians, and most especially Protestants, are completely and totally ignorant of the ancient church. Many believe that church history stopped with the death of the Apostle John and started up again with the birth of their particular denomination or local church. Not only do many sense no connection to the ancient church, they sense no connection to any church, including the one they attend. For a goodly number of these people, it's all about "me, my Bible, and Jesus."

It was about that time that I did a survey of church ads in the local papers. Most, I discovered, seemed to be pointed at Christians who were already in a church. Including ours. Some, to their credit, were not. They were directed at those individuals and families who had no current relationship with God or no current relationship with a church family. It's not like the fishing pond is small, either.

Within a 5.22-mile radius of our congregation, for example, there are some 5,000 homes. This means that there are 15,000-20,000 people living within five and a quarter miles of our building. The vast majority of these people are not active in a local church. And we are in an unincorporated area, which means that, for many churches within city limits, the population density is much greater.

So, with this vast pool of available potential church-goers, why do we pastors spend so much effort trying to attract people in another church to attend our church? Habit, most likely. We tend to do what we've always done, even if it doesn't work.

I remember talking to one pastor and asking him, "Is your mission to win as many non-Christians to your church as possible?"

He replied, with a grin, "No, my goal is to win as many Baptists to my church as possible. They tend to be better givers."

Hmmm. At least he was honest.

So, in my dilemma to write a church ad, I paused and thought about what we shared with our leaders and congregation that were trying to do at our church. I remembered that we told our people that we were "building for the future," that we were "establishing something for our children and our grandchildren and for their children and grandchildren."

We bought almost 12 acres of land, which is certainly more than we need right now, and we built a new building that seats more people than we have right now. I thought about the struggles of paying for and building a new church building these last several months. I thought about the sense of pride and accomplishment when we moved in last November and I thought about this coming Sunday when an archbishop will come and set the building aside as "sacred space" for the worship of God. Why did we go through all this trouble and expense anyway? And then I knew.

I reached for the keyboard and typed, "We Built it for You - and for your family and for your friends to have a place to meet God." That's not very catchy or profound or pithy. But it is the truth. That's our message and our spirit that we wish to convey.

Oh, and by the waywe're not trying to win all the Baptists to our church. Even if they do tend to be good givers.

[Father David Epps is rector of Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church, which meets at 10 a.m. Sundays at 4881 E. Hwy 34. He may be contacted at 770-252-2428, at FatherDavidEpps@aol.com or at www.ctkcec.org.]

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