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Thursday, April 05, 2007

Simply Strategic


Here at Grace Church we don’t want to do ministries, programs and activities just to do them. We want to be strategic. When it comes to reaching lost people it is our goal to have activities and programs that will meet people where they are and help move them to where God wants them to be. It is our strategy to move them through several levels.

Level 1 – The Community. This involves those who live within driving distance of our church but have never had any connection with Grace Church.

Level 2 – The Crowd. This includes those who have had a positive contact with our church but have no ongoing connection with us.

Level 3 – The Curious. This includes those who have a more ongoing contact with our church and who are actively seeking a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Level 4 – The Convinced. This includes those who have made the decision of faith to trust the death and resurrection of Jesus alone for the forgiveness of their sins.

We want to meet people where they are and move them to where God wants them to be. To accomplish this we put on certain events and activities that targets the community with the only goal being to move them into the crowd. If we can use these activities to break down the preconceived barriers that they might have about church and provide them with a positive first experience with our ministry, then we have a much greater opportunity to see them become part of the curious. It is then as this group continues to attend and seek God that we see people becoming convinced and making decisions for Christ.

That is why we have events like our recent Easter Egg Hunt. There was no innately spiritual aspect of this event. We didn’t pray, preach or sing. It was just what we advertised it to be…an Easter Egg Hunt. There was no “bait and switch” at all. Over 1,000 kids came along with their parents and grandparents for a total of over 3,000 people. They participated in all kinds of cool activities and had some fun scouring our soccer field for Easter Eggs and candy. Four of these kids even went home with brand new bikes.

Some would say, “But why would you spend all of that money to get people here and not even present to them the Gospel?” The reason is because that was not the purpose of the event. The Easter Egg Hunt, like the Ladies Beach Blast coming in April and our Rodeo coming in June, was a level one event. The purpose was to move hundreds of people from the community to the crowd by giving them their first connection with our church. We then gave each of them a special invitation to spend Easter here with us at Grace. This is a level two event. We will use Easter to share the Gospel with these folks and encourage those who are curious to come back again the following Sunday which will be a level three event in which not only will the Gospel be given but people will be given the opportunity to make a commitment to Christ. It is simply strategic and very effective!

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