Recently, my church held a large event for our town: a fireworks celebration.
It didn’t go as planned. (You can hear more about it in episode sixty-one of the ChurchMag podcast and in this article about some of the lessons I learned from it.)
We hold the event at the small, regional airport located in our town. On the opposite side of the fireworks, across a large field that runs along our town, is a set of pee-wee soccer fields and another church. This other church has an almost perfect view of the fireworks, if even from a distance.
Now, in the nine years that we’ve held this event, various companies, businesses, families, and churches have quietly gathered their own people to enjoy the show from their own parking lots, fields, etc… However, this year was different. This other church on the field held their own celebration…and invited the town.
They offered free food, and made a few subtle digs at our event, which charges a small amount for food in order to reduce the amount of money we lose by throwing this huge party.
Needless to say, I didn’t appreciate this attempt at riding on our coattails.
A Few Words About Church Outreach
The Church—and I’m referring to the global Church—always looks bad when her local bodies are fighting. If a church is holding an event on a particular day, don’t try to compete with them or draft behind them. Now, if it’s a holiday event like a Trunk or Treat or something in that vein, then all’s fair in love and event-based evangelism.
Of course, that’s to say nothing about the whole problem with church outreach evangelism in the first place. Most church events only truly appeal to Christians, so most outreaches—and yes, that is a generalization—succeed only in attracting a roving band of Christians who sample all the church events in town. That’s just one man’s opinion, of course, but I’m a pretty big man so….
There does seem to be a resurgence in service-based outreach, which I think is far more successful. My church recently gave out grocery bags packed with food and hygiene products to help “food insecure” kids make it through the summer. How did we do this? With a huge event in our parking lot? Nope. Quietly, on the last day of school, we gave it to them in the office. No pomp. No flash. Quiet service with the left hand no knowing what the right hand is doing.
Conclusion
What does all of this have to do with technology? Because in this Web 2.0 world, even the smallest things like having an event on the same day as someone else, has the potential to blow up…in your face and on your Facebook page. Let’s all play nice, ok?
Anyway, let’s call this rant over.
Have you ever had an event bootlegged? Have you ever done it yourself?
Phil Schneider
I'm a teacher and discipleship pastor. More importantly, I'm husband to the greatest woman in the world and father to a ridiculously cute daughter. I also occasionally scratch out a few blog posts.
Great article. We have a lot of churches we partner with that have found the service-based outreach really works.
http://church.worldvision.org
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Honestly, we’ve never held an event that’s been bootlegged, but it sounds like this other church had some great ideas. At Missio Dei, our events are inclusive by design. We partner with local vendors and it’s them that offset our own costs. We build in those safeguards so that we don’t have to charge for anything.
I guess it really all depends on your church’s ministry philosophy, but I’d recommend turning into a block party next year and get that other church in on it too! Who knows, maybe they could help offset your costs too?
That’s not a bad thought, Jesse, but this is a pretty huge event. It’s hard enough to coordinate within our church; I can’t imagine how it would be to involve another.
This other church had some great ideas, but my point here is look at their heart: we’re going to undermine our brothers and sisters in order to grow our church.
I’ve never heard of an event being bootlegged like this before—CRAZY!?!?! #dontbethatchurch
The struggle is real.