Helping Seekers and Shoppers Become Settlers

http://your.sydneyanglicans.net/mission/missionthinking/helping_seekers_and_shoppers_become_settlers/

[your.sydneyanglican.net] 8 May 2007--Now I’m fully committed to the ‘go to them model’ of evangelism where we build relationships with people in our sphere of influence and seek to share Christ in a way that is apt and clear. I’m all for that. I am.

That said, people without any prior connection to our church community do drift in to services and activities. This past Easter - across Sydney people “drifted in” by the bus-load (if the stories my colleagues are telling are true!).

These people, in my opinion, fit into at least two broad categories; ‘Seekers’ and ‘Shoppers’. ‘Seekers’ (a term popularised by Dr. Hybels in Chicago - a term I still love) are people willing to consider the gospel (perhaps among a range of other options) and are not necessarily turned off by formal organised religion. Indeed, of their own volition they turn up to church.

‘Shoppers’ comprise a range of people. They may be ‘refugees’ from another church or ministry, they may be looking for a program for their kids, they may have recently moved into your suburb and are looking for a new church home. In the main ‘Shoppers’ are believers.

So what happens when these people appear at events and activities? Let me share something of a developing generic welcome strategy that we in our context are stumbling through. Its purpose is to help ‘Seekers’ and ‘Shoppers’ become ‘Settlers’.