Update: More photos (from Ian):
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First guest post since Phil on Renwick probably. But our Australian RP brother (Happy Australia Day I believe!) asked for more info on COTS so here it is! Over to Carla:
Someone asked for more info on church on the street but since Stephen wasn’t actually there he’s asked me to write a bit about it. So here goes:
There are some things in life you just don’t forget, you rave on and on about them for ages. You see someone you haven’t seen for a couple of months and after all the usually pleasantries, hows uni? etc they say… “I saw (probably on facebook -let’s face it!) you were at the Snow Patrol concert?” Your reply “Oh yea, it was amazing, they were so good live and they did this and sung this song…” and you proceed to talk about it for the next ten minutes even though the other person may not actually be all that interested in hearing about every single detail of your three hour concert. Well church on the street is one of those subjects for me, I fully loved it and am still talking about it, even though it happened before Christmas!
The purpose behind it = PR! Yea you heard me, we weren’t out on the street shouting at people, or even asking them “what does God mean to you?” and “who would you say Jesus was?” we were just chatting and giving them free stuff.
What we did was buy a big gazebo type structure and erect it smack-bang in the middle of Airdrie town centre (which is pedestrianised btw). We set up a table with trays of shortbread, mince pies, chocolate rolls and all sorts of wintery treats, which we invited our fellow townsmen to sample free of charge along with a tea, coffee, irn-bru or other suitable drink. Inside our big blue gazebo we had a paraffin heater people could sit around and keep warm while drinking their choice of hot beverage or they could stand around outside and chat.
Each morning a band of merry men from the congregation braved the sub-zero temperatures to shovel snow, carry supplies and erect the gazebo. The real fun started at around 10.30 or 11am and we continued serving our teas and coffees until around 2.30 or 3pm – by which time the lack of light forced us to pack up shop.
The first day someone managed to count 70 people coming up to our wee stall and I think each of the following days were just as successful which is pretty cool! I doubt there has ever been a door to door outreach done (at least not in Airdrie) where conversations have been had with 70 different people over the period of just three or four short hours. You could argue that we weren’t necessarily having spiritual conversations with each one of those 350 people and yes that would be a fair criticism to make and I have absolutely no authority on the subject with which to argue back. But maybe, just maybe come the 5th of April when those people get a little blue book through their door they will look at the name on the front, be reminded of the kindness of some lady or man who gave them a cup of coffee on a cold day and think ‘you know, there might just be something in this’.
The people out there in my community and in yours, wherever that may be, they are real people and they have real needs – the difference is it’s so much harder for them because they don’t have a great Saviour to turn to in their times of trouble. We aren’t going to meet these real people sitting in our cosy warm homes with a fire on (it was -12 degrees, believe me, I could have been tempted) we’re going to meet them by being out there interacting with them. This idea of ‘Church on the Street’ is certainly not the only way, but it is one way…
Back to me now! This seems like a good place to plug the 2010 Airdrie GO Team! Where you get to give out said little blue books (advertising the mission) that were mentioned above! Wed 31st March to Monday 5th April. Help reach out to a very needy community, have your horizons broadened, more craic than you can shake a big stick at, and you won’t even have to pay to get here! (though if you bring me some Tayto, that would be appreciated) And the only GO team Walker ever went on!
And just maybe see if a few people remember friendly folk from a church out making a difference in their community.
(Note: No mention of ‘Christmas’ on any of the church stuff, just in case anyone’s feeling dubious!)
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