Finding a church might be a challenge
Can people find your church? I recently returned from a 1,900-mile trip throughout Southern Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, visiting retired ministers and missionaries in my denomination.
It was a good trip, but included being away on a Sunday. Since obviously our retired people would be in church on a Sunday morning and I would not be able to visit them, and given the fact that I normally worship on Sunday morning myself, I promptly decided to find a church in which to worship in a town with several thousand people. It was interesting.
I asked the motel clerk where I could find a church, and he said he didn’t know any. I then asked if he had a list of local churches, and he didn’t. I asked if he had a telephone book, but the only one he could find was printed in 2008 (not good). By the way, this was a nice motel in a nice part of town. So, I began to look for a church myself.
I found one little church that had about six cars in front of it, and almost went in, but the dilapidated sign only listed Sunday School and no worship, so I looked elsewhere.
I found a big Catholic Church, but there was no listing for mass and it was locked.
I then found another small church, which had only three cars in front of it, and decided that maybe that was not for me.
This was beginning to be interesting. There were no church signs anywhere that I could see in the entire town.
I did find a funeral home that kind of looked like a church (I think people were just “dying” to get in there — just joking), but it too was locked.
I also found a building with a huge cross on top of it plus another large cross on its door, but it turned out to be an auto parts store — and it also was locked.
Being a little desperate by this time, I decided to stop at the local McDonald’s to see if they knew where a church might be. However, the line had about 30 people in it, and I could see I wasn’t going to get much information. So, I began to inquire from people entering the store if they knew where a church might be located. No one knew of any. Then, a nice woman stepped forward and said she lived in the town and might be able to help, but when I asked her about a church she thought and thought and finally said my best chance was to travel about 15 miles to another town where she was sure they had churches.
Because it was getting close to the time most worship services began, I did the high-tech thing: I asked Google if there were any churches in this town. Right away, Google popped up with several churches, the first being the First Baptist Church, and it was only three miles away. Wow! That was right up my alley, so I immediately drove out to it. I say “drove out to it” because it was three miles out in the country. There were around 100 people there, so that’s where I decided to worship. Yes, there was a sign out front, but there were no other signs about it anywhere in town that I could find.
I was warmly greeted by a gentleman and then later by several members of the congregation, all of whom pointed out that they were lamenting the fact that the church was losing members. As I looked around, one thing became obvious. Everyone except two children, everyone in the church was white, this in a city which I suspect was at least 95 percent are African American. They did say that
there was another Baptist church out in the country to the south of them that was growing with over a 1,000 members. I wondered why.
My observation suggests several things for this church to do in order to grow: (1) Let people know where it is located and what it had to offer. (2) Learn how to minister to the people around it and not just the white folks. (3) Become actively involved in the city among all of its inhabitants. (4) At least, advertise in the Yellow Pages.
I wanted to worship on a Sunday morning and couldn’t find a church. I didn’t care what kind of church it was or whether its membership was white or black (or something else). Think about it. If someone came to your community looking for a church in which to worship, do you think they could find your church?
Robert Box is the former chaplain for the Bella Vista Police Department and is currently the Fire Department chaplain. The opinions expressed are those of the author.