A NEW CHALLENGE

In 1980 I moved to Recife, Brazil with a team of missionaries to start a church. The Lord blessed our efforts and established several churches in the metropolitan area as well as outlying areas of the state. After several years I began to think about returning to the states, but my passion was still church planting. At this time the Macon Road Church in Memphis approached me about planting a church stateside.

In 1987 I returned for a year of study at Harding Graduate School and then returned to Brazil for an additional two years. During that year of study I solidified plans with Macon Road to plant a church in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I was privileged to take a church growth course at the graduate school under Dr. Evertt Huffard. During this course he asked, "How would you like to start a church and have 200 unchurched people on the first day?" My ears perked up. He went on to introduce the class to "The Phone's for You!" church growth program and workbook developed by Norman Whan. The mission committee at Macon Road agreed to purchase the workbook for use in starting the church in Cape.

Since my experience was with church planting in Brazil, the question lingered in my mind: How do you get a church started? This church planting would be different not only because it was in a different country but also, contrary to my preference, I would not be working with a team. On May 31, 1990, we said good-bye to our Brazilian home of ten years and embarked on a new adventure in church planting stateside. By the fall of 1990 we were settled in our new home in Cape Girardeau and ready to begin.

CHURCH PLANTING STRATEGY

Our plan required much work. We installed 10 telephone lines in our house. We enlisted the help of Christian friends from Memphis, Nashville, Cookeville, and Searcy. Christians, including an elder and his wife, from the other congregation in town also helped. In all, 89 people passed through our home during a four-week period. They received some brief training before they started calling.

We were to dial the telephones 26,000 times in the four weeks from the middle of January to the middle of February (1991). The program calls for a series of questions beginning with, "Do you have a church home?" If the answer was "yes," regardless of the church affiliation, the conversation was politely ended. If the answer was "no," then we had found an unchurched person. We next wanted to know if they were interested in receiving information through the mail concerning a new church that would be starting soon. Those answering positively were added to our mailing list of interested, unchurched people.

Mailings had to be prepared as well. We designed our own logo with a tree growing out of a Bible and the words "Come Grow With Us!" printed to the side. An artist gave it a professional look. Since the city's growth is mainly to the north, this is the side of town on which we located. We call ourselves the North Cape Church of Christ. The mailings had this logo and identification on them though most prominently on the front was simply "The New North Cape Church." The program called for a series of five mailings. The first was simply a letter from the preacher thanking them for their interest and telling a little about what we hoped to accomplish in this community. Next there were two brochures. One is entitled "Who We Are" and the other, "Ten Ways We Serve." Both are very upbeat, describing our basic beliefs. what to expect when you visit our service, and how we plan to serve this community. Next, a post card with pertinent information concerning our opening was mailed. A week before opening, a more formal invitation was sent.

Finally, we tried to recontact everyone who had expressed interest. In this contact we asked some to bring cookies for the fellowship immediately following the worship service. Including this last call, there was a total of seven contacts with each interested family before opening day.

We contracted with a new convention center to use their facilities. These facilities include meeting rooms that seat 300 and an arena that will hold over 7,000. All the setup and cleanup is their responsibility. This location gave the church a first-class image.

PHONING RESULTS

Norm Whan and the Church Growth Development International who market "The Phone's for You!" claim a 10 percent average response rate in the United States. In other words, in an area of average receptivity, 10 percent of the dial-ups will express interest in the new church. Ten percent of those will show up on opening day. Our hope was that by following this plan closely and dialing 26,000 times, we would have 260 on opening day.

As calls began, we realized that the receptivity of this area was not going to be 10 percent This area was a bit resistant. having a 6 percent acceptance rate. We also fell a bit short of our goal, dialing the phone only 24,635 times. We talked with 13,879 people. The 1,485 who expressed an interest in the new church were added to our mailing list. Since we had prepared 2,500 of each piece of literature (anticipating 10% receptivity), we randomly chose another 869 names from those numbers that we had been unable to reach and mailed to them also.

OPENING DAY RESULTS

On opening day there were 128 people present in the meeting rooms of the convention center. Most of these were the unchurched who had been contacted through the phone campaign. There have been 19 baptisms and several transfers from new people to town. No members were drawn from the other congregation in town. Four did leave a congregation in a nearby town to work with us. All the baptisms have been from the unchurched, originally contacted through the phone campaign and then networking their families and friends. Though many of these have since grown cold, we still have many good contacts among those originally called. The last baptism as of this writing was on October 27, 1993 and was one of the original phone contacts. This effort has been successful in regaining some former members of the Church of Christ. However, most members have had little contact with our fellowship, or any other church, in the recent past.

The workbook made it clear to us not to expect to continue with 128. There would be a significant drop off the very next Sunday as some decided it was not what they wanted. During the first four Sundays, the church averaged 72 and now averages just over 50.

After two and one-half years of existence, the church continues to meet once a week at the convention center. Since we have no permanent place to meet and because it has proven to be a great way to cultivate our prospects for the gospel and mature new Christians, we use small group meetings in members' homes during the week. We presently have six adult small groups, one teenage and one children's group meeting.

Our growth is not phenomenal by any means. I still have not found another way to begin a church that does not rely on transfers from other congregations for growth and that produces like this one does. It works for established congregations as well, but there are some major differences in results. The developers report that the percentages fall. There will still be 10 percent expressing an interest but only 5 percent will come to an established church and fewer will stay. So, if your church is in an area of 10 percent receptivity and you dialed the phone 20,000 times, you could expect to build a list of 2,000 interested individuals. But on your special Sunday only 100, not the 200 expected in a new church planting, would show up. More people want to get in on the ground floor rather than going into a work already established. Still, if your community is large enough, what other way do you know of getting 100 or more unchurched people to attend a church function?

In retrospect there are a few things I would have done differently. We did not plan well enough for the last phone contact before opening day. We could only contact a portion of the list. I believe that brought our opening day attendance down though our 9 percent show-up rate was better than the 6 percent expected. More importantly, if I could have, I would have moved here with a team to help in follow-up. At the least I would have had a local core group formed and prepared. Had we had the workers trained and ready to begin personal evangelism and small groups, I believe we would have reached more of our phone contacts before their interest waned.

Except for a lack of adequate planning to accomplish the last call back and some changes of terminology, we followed the workbook to the letter. This was difficult for me. I had to keep reminding myself that the developers of this program were the marketing experts and that the program was tried and proven. Why gamble with success by inserting unfounded ideas?

The workbook is comprehensive. It includes work sheets to aid you in calculating the costs. You get a promotional video and five audio tapes that take you through the process step by step. They also send nicely printed examples of the materials to be mailed; complete scripts to use in actual calling; how to set up your phone room, train callers, and develop a prayer program; record keeping instructions complete with all the necessary forms; and some problem solving tips.

Most people are not comfortable making such calls, including me. I felt intimidated and afraid that I would intimidate those on the other end of the line. But, for the sake of getting the church off on a good foot, I was willing to extend my comfort zone a bit. Realizing that many people would have problems with this, the developers have included several tips in the workbook to reduce the intimidation both by the caller and the one being called. These tips helped.

How do you build a church? The foundation was laid years ago, but knowing the gospel of Jesus Christ and knowing how to preach it and teach it well is not enough. The building blocks of God's church are people; people called living stones by the apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2:5; people willing to listen and respond to the message of salvation. I believe finding those living stones is one of the most challenging tasks for workers in the United States. This program certainly helped us sift through a major portion of our community, find those interested souls, and start fitting them in as quickly as possible into a "spiritual house."

If you would like to contact me, you may call (314) 334 -- WORD or write P.O. Box 644, Cape Girardeau, MO 63701. For information about "The Phone's for You!" program, contact Norm Whan, Church Growth Development International, 420 W. Lambert Road, Suite E, Brea, CA 92621 or telephone (714) 990 - 955l.