Recent studies have shown that 50% of the American public would like to be invited to Church! Dave Devin from Memorial Lutheran Bremerton, Washington, conducted an interesting experiment to prove this hypothesis. He took a bunch of  small packs of chips and invitations designed  for the Easter service to a Safeway parking lot near his church.  As people came out with their groceries he approached them with a friendly smile and asked, "Would you like a free bag of chips and an invitation to our church for Easter?" He approached 118 people over three days and almost everyone was friendly. 21 people said they were too busy to attend church, but about 60 people took the chips and the invitations and said they would come to his church on Easter.

One man commented that he had been thinking of going to church since Christmas, but he wasn't sure which church to go to. Several people took the invitations, but not the chips and others said they have never been to church, but that they would like to see what church was all about. Another woman wanted to bring her daughter for the breakfast and Easter egg hunt.  Over 223 people attended the Easter service, the most people that they have had in over 20 years!

Six members of Valley Lutheran in Chagrin Falls, OH visited 84 businesses as part of the "off campus outreach events" that were prescribed in their revitalization consultation. Following the visits, approximately 20 prayer requests were received from the downtown restaurants, retail and service businesses. Each of the 84 businesses was mentioned in a service and prayers were offered for their success following the outreach event. Finally, a follow up post card was sent to each business.

The simple outreach process consisted of five easy steps. 1. The evangelism team introduced themselves to the owner or manager. 2. An explanation about Valley Lutheran's belief in the power of prayer and an offer to pray for the success of the business was given. 3. The owner was given a letter from the pastor and a small sign that the business could post. 4. The owner was asked for additional and specific prayer requests. 5. The team wished them a blessed day. Even members of the team that had never evangelized before found this process to be very positive and well-received. The positive impact on the business community and the spiritual growth of the six who evangelized were tremendous.

Dr. David Hyatt has joined TCN as their new Coaching Facilitator. His responsibilities include providing coaching, training, and support for District Facilitators, as they lead their district congregations in the revitalization process. Any District interested in receiving training for Coaches can contact David at dhyatt@stjstl.net or TCN's executive director, Terry Tieman, at terry@transformingchurchesnetwork.org.
 
David and his wife, Bonnie, are active members of St. John Lutheran Church in Ellisville, MO (St. Louis), and David works out of St. John, being on the staff as a consultant to churches.  David is a Certified Consultant with TCN and has been working with TCN's revitalization process for the past two years.  He is also a member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Middleport, New York, is exploring God's unique vision for them as a congregation. They are anxious to carry out God's vision since society has taught us that time is too valuable to waste. The organizational structure of Holy Cross, as prescribed  by a TCN consultation, requires that leaders focus on accomplishing the vision that God has established for the congregation. The structure of the church is divided into two parts, the Governing Board and the Ministry Team. The Governing Board, with the Pastor as the chief vision officer, seeks God's vision for the church and the community, establishes the principles by which the Ministry Team operates, and then holds the Ministry Team accountable. The Ministry Team carries out the responsibilities of the congregation.

Messiah Lutheran in Memphis, Tenn., was like most churches that wanted to reach out to the community - they had good ideas and good intentions, but there wasn’t a plan. Messiah Lutheran had conducted several outreach activities, but had seen little success. After discussing this challenge with their TCN Coach, Messiah Lutheran put together a focused plan that outlined how to build on each event to make an even greater impact in the community.

The church determined that the local fire station would be a natural fit for their outreach efforts, which met their desire to work with underserved groups. The church planned a Valentine’s Day dinner for the firemen and EMT’s at the station. At the dinner, they donated 33 much-needed air pumps, which only cost a few dollars a piece, to the station. Twelve people from the station attended the event. One of the firefighters now attends church at Messiah Lutheran regularly, and often brings trainees with him. Now, two of those trainees are in the adult confirmation class.

TCN trained 35 potential consultants for the national Mission Revitalization process, February 5-8, in Davie, Florida.  Co-sponsored by the Florida - Georgia District of the LCMS, most of the individuals are being groomed to serve within that district.  One of the participants, a retired pastor in Georgia, stated that this was the best training conference that he had ever attended in his life!  More than that, he said it was the most encouraged and excited that he had been about ministry in a long, long time.  He added that this was really saying something, since he was over 70 years old and had served as a pastor for several decades!

Consultations are one of the three main components of the TCN Mission Revitalization process.  The other components are Coaching and Learning Communities.  To find out more, go to www.transformingchurchesnetwork.org and click on TCN Process Components.

In a January 2009 survey of 18 churches which were among the first to hold consultations in 2007, church attendance increased an average of 10.9%.  Click here to see the details of the report

The Pilgrim Saint Paul Lutheran Church (PSPLC) was formed just 3 years ago by the merger of two churches in Lakewood.  The Outreach Team of PSPLC was searching for a way to conduct a “net fishing” event to witness to the community. 

On a cool Saturday morning in late May, the Outreach Team set up a coffee stand in front of the church.  PSPLC is located on the main thoroughfare through the rapidly changing first ring suburb of Cleveland. The idea was to give away a free cup of coffee, (graciously donated by Caribou Coffee) and a doughnut with an offer to pray for any of their prayer requests. Once we engaged the individual(s) on that subject, we would then utilize their response to witness to them in a manner appropriate to the situation. With this coffee stand, we also had a table of different tracts, books, videos and other literature for any one that desired to pursue their faith. These items were purchased through specific donations from congregation members.