From: eric
Date: Tue Mar 28 16:30:08 MST 2006
Subject: march 2006

Village march 2006 I’ve attended a lot of little churches in my short lifetime, and I was thinking recently that one of the many things that makes the Village different is the foot traffic. People come from different churches to see how we do things, others get to know us through our website and then visit when they’re in town; and, of course, you guys bring your friends and neighbors. I was wondering what kind of impact this has on us as a community. We, at some level, are living in a fishbowl. The benefit of this is that we get to have a widespread impact on the way other people think about church and community, and to offer our version of how it might be done. On the other hand, one negative effect of being a church that people want to come and experience is that we may not notice the new people in our midst who are not just observing, but are thinking about becoming part of the community. Since we don’t have a program-driven or cell based church with events to send people to in order to connect, it’s important for each of us to talk to new people as they show up. We each have the responsibility of considering the status of newcomers. If they are wanting to plug in at the Village in a long-term kind of way, we need to think about how we might connect with them again, who else they could get together with to form relationship, and if there is a Bible study structure they would benefit from participating in. At the Village, we are each ministers with the joint task of enfolding those who come into our space. We will continue to function well as an organic community as we work toward this end together.

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