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FOCUSING ON YOUR AFFILIATES
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This is the main thesis of an excellent book by Reginald Bibby: There’s Got To Be More, Woodlake Books, Winfield, BC, 1995. It is well worth reading for every rector. It would make an excellent study book for advisory boards which are working at segments sequentially.
Some of the main points are as follows:
1. Affiliates are people who have some past or present sense of belonging to your community. They are by far the most likely prospects for new members. Affiliate numbers far exceed those attending. Lay claim to your affiliates.
2. Do not think about who is "in" and who is "out". Think about your parish as concentric circles where people move from the edges to the centre, gradually increasing their participation and involvement.
3. Think relationally. People are motivated by their social linkages with friends and family. Ask yourself about the many social linkages of your existing members.
4. Think balance. Healthy parishes keep a balance in their teaching and focus on God, self, and society.
5. Think collectively. How can different churches and faith communities cooperate together to help each other reach out to their affiliates?
The book goes on to talk about how churches should be tracking their affiliates scrupulously, when they are moving house, leaving for school, or establishing new households.
There are three principal avenues for finding our affiliates:
1. Performing door-to-door surveys.
2. Cataloguing and following up all contacts from baptisms, marriages, funerals, etc.
3. Creating opportunities to meet the friends and families of present members.
We know from Algoma statistics we have looked at in the past that for every ten people identifying themselves as affiliates in the most recent census, only one is in church on Sunday, and only three are known to us. How can we make acquaintance with the other seven?
Item L
©2002 Ronald C. Ferris
... back to "Resources for effective parish leadership" main page
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