Cold-calling - the answer to your prayers...

Outreach for the parish of St Catherine's Church, in Tilehurst, has taken on new meaning since the Revd Denis Smith and his team have hit the road.

The doorstep introduction will go something like this: “Hello I’m from the church around the corner and next week we’re going to be praying for those who live in your road – can I give you our prayer request card?  Is there anything or anyone  you would like prayer for?”

And the response? We’ve had an invite to look around the boat someone was building in their garage, or the start of a conversation: ‘Come in I used to go to church’. It has been a prayer requested and said right there on the doorstep, or a heartfelt yes, please pray for my family, my friend, pray for peace in this road, pray for peace in the world.

This gives a flavour of the feedback that our prayerc card initiative in  the Parish of St. Catherine of Siena in Tilehurst has illicited since we began last year.

It all started when a member of the Cornwell Community Church, an established church plant in the parish, suggested dropping a prayer request card into all the houses in its patch over a seven-week period.

Such was the welcome and success of the project that our Licensed Lay Minister (LLM) Pam Toon and I, with the help of a small team, have just kept going,

We have expanded the idea too, by going one step further than dropping cards through doors. Now we knock as well, to initiate face-to-face contact which might well be the first we have had with someone. It’s an introduction and just maybe, if that person had wondered about coming to church, it might be the spur that helps them decide, feeling they already know our faces and will be welcomed.

If people are out the card is just popped through the letterbox. Even then, letters are written and prayer cards returned to the vicarage with requests for prayer. The church responds to the prayer requests in the services during the following week.

Yes it does take time, but we fit the visits into our weekly schedule and it is worth all the effort. There is a risk that we may not be welcomed. But our overwhelming experience so far has been positive.

Many parishes pray for roads on a regular basis. We’ve just taken it further by visiting the people. It’s helping to recover the contact and care that has been lost in parish ministry – a problem that many communities face today, and one that will only grow as our region accommodates the massive expansion of homes planned over the next 20 years.

Bishop Stephen has already said he’s game for joining our intrepid band for some door knocking. Maybe other parishes would like to give it a try?

The Revd Denis Smith is priest in charge of St Catherine's Church