Monday 2nd July 2007
The Outreach and Welcome group at St Mary's, Banbury began planning for Back to Church Sunday 2006 last June.
“We decided to use the title ‘Come to Church Sunday’ and do a more general leafleting of the parish with Christmas services as well as the special services on 25 November,” says the Revd Janet Chapman.
“However, we also provided the congregation with personal invitations to give to friends and family. We also mailed recent baptism and wedding families from the last five years or so. Our Sunday School made invitations to give to friends.
“We did press releases, and the local radio interviewed our churchwarden.”
On the day itself, the congregation made an extra effort to be welcoming both before and after the service.
“We put the ‘red carpet’ out - normally reserved for weddings - in the porch. We involved organ and band in the service, so as to have maximum range of music styles. We kept to our normal communion service but made extra effort to make it accessible – such as announcing page numbers.
“The sermon was marginally shorter than usual and, whilst ‘just a talk’, used strong images and one visual aid.
“As people left everyone was given a postcard with an image of the church on it and a prayer. There was quite a buzz about the whole service and the refreshments afterwards.”
Not a huge number of extra people came on the day, but a couple who did have stayed and become regular worshippers.
“Several in our own congregation said how special it made them feel to be part of St Mary’s,” she says. “We feel it stressed to the congregation that regular worship is important and numbers since have been slightly up (say 5%) most Sundays.
“We also saw a massive increase in our congregation at the ‘Nine lessons and carols’. We did do some more leafleting and personal invitations to this service especially around the town businesses and we invited representatives of local organisations to read lessons. But the increase was from around 100 in the congregation in the preceding five years to a massive 250!”