How did a United Methodist church in a community of only 900 people develop a weekly mid-week worship service that has grown from only a dozen elementary students three years ago to over 40? The answer: worship, food, and intentional outreach!
LaFontaine UMC, pastored by Crystal Jacobson, took its Wednesday after-school ministry and added a 30-minute worship service opened to their parents and other adults, followed by a meal that they help prepare. As a result, people who have never been involved in the church’s Sunday morning service have become regular participants on Wednesdays.
As a way to grow the service’s attendance, Pastor Crystal launched a bring-a-friend competition and began keeping track of the number of people each child invited during the previous week. As a result, this past year the children have invited nearly 550! And, so far, 62 have attended.
Inviting friends is now normative. Pastor Crystal shared that one of the best inviters was confused as to why the pastor was so impressed at her number of invitations. “She didn’t know that [inviting friends] is not normal in most congregations.” Crystal went on to report, “Our winner was a 7 year-old boy who would do a blitz of invitations on Tuesday evenings through texting and messenger, along with inviting friends at school. He won with 55 invitations.”
In August the church celebrated 10 baptisms–7 adults, and 3 children. All but one regularly attend the Wednesday service. And the Wednesday night attenders have been joining the Sunday morning congregation in joint events such as vacation Bible school, a fall hayride, summer feeding program and more! And the bottom line is more formerly unreached folk in the community are being discipled and are regularly worshiping God! Praise God!
— Ed Fenstermacher, Associate Director of Church Development
Making Disciples, Transforming Communities 