So here's our discussion topic for this Friday. St. Matthew's has been given a tidy sum of money to spend on "Outreach," but we need to at least come up with some viable suggestions by the end of the month. If we don't at least produce a couple of do-able daydreams, we don't get the money.
This isn't hypothetical: it's a real grant with a deadline.
So our task will be to brainstorm what we might want to spend some outreach money on.
Note 1: It's not
that much money. We don't have enough to propose building a radio station or buying a blimp.
Note 2: I'm still not that much into Episcopalian jargon, so when we say "outreach," we need to make sure we're talking about the same thing. There are at least three different kinds of "reaching" we can do as a church (and they kind of overlap):
- Inreach is the way we take care of one another and the way we promote unity. Such things as the weekly Bible study count as inreach. This money isn't for inreach.
- Outreach (in the Episcopalian dictionary) is charitable services to people whom we do not necessarily expect to join our church. The Food Pantry would count as this sort of outreach. I guess the money could be used for this, but it's apparently intended for the third kind of "reaching"
- Church growth (I don't know why we fear the concept of evangelism so much) is finding people who are not yet part of our church, and helping them make that transition. These last two kind of blur together, for example when Grace in Mansfield did the Jazz Evensong and had a free picnic, it sort of did both of these.
