IN THIS ISSUE:
1. REASON FOR THIS NEWSLETTER
2. CHURCH GROWTH
3. LEADERSHIP
4. CHURCH INTERNET WEB SITE
5. BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
6. SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE

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1. REASON FOR THIS NEWSLETTER
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". . . to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." (Heb 13:2) Luke's lawyer would probably ask who is a "stranger"? A number of years ago everybody knew everybody in a community and anybody's business was everybody's business. As communities have grown into towns, and towns have gone into cities "anonymity" has become a way of life. The individual says it is MY business and keep your nose out of it. When a stranger visits your church "is it anonymity or filling out a visitors card"? How does your church gather information about the stranger? Some methods are: 1) have the stranger fill out a visitor card, 2) some are designated to talk to him/her and get name, address, and phone number, or 3) greet the guest and invite them to return without obtaining personal information. Present day opinion is for "ANONYMITY", but a church can not serve people without "SOME INFORMATION"?

Bill Hybels, founder of Willow Creek, originally believed that people wanted to remain unknown until they wanted to become a known factor in the church. Hybels later changed his position to some information needs to be gathered for the church to communicate as well as developing a friendship between Willow Creek and the attender. Even later Hybels states that information MUST be gathered for the congregation to effectively meet the needs of pre-Christians as well as Christians.

Does your congregation maintain a prospect list or lists and have a process in place for inviting guests? Arthur Flake and Andy Anderson (both introduced in the last Newsletter) use a fivefold formula for church growth. The five items are1) Find the People, 2) Equip Leadership and Teachers, 3) Provide the Space, 4) Enlarge the Organization -- Number of Classes or Units, and 5) A Program of Visitation.

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2. CHURCH GROWTH
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According to Arthur Flake in "Building a Standard Sunday School" (1922), a religious census of the community should be taken. Flake recommended that a census. This should be taken at least once a year. A census requires designating a territory that can easily be covered for a house-to-house canvass. Different territories can be covered later. Flake advocated using a map (now available from the local Chamber of Commerce or state highway department for county maps). Then, using the map, the territory should be divided into small divisions so a census taker can cover a section in two hours. Flake recommends the census be taken on Sunday afternoon after a quick finger-type lunch, then two hours of canvassing, and then a short meeting back at the church building, where the canvasser can share some of the experiences they had in their work.

Flake recommended a separate card for EVERY INDIVIDUAL in the home, i.e., five people, five cards. The information on the card should include name, address, age (birthday), church membership and where, and church preference.

The person(s) in charge of Outreach now has the cards sorted, first eliminating those members of other congregations then sorted by Sunday school classes and separate lists made for the Sunday school teacher and the class outreach person as well as others. Then people start calling on the new prospects. Read Flake at http://webminister.com/growth01/plan0176.htm .

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3. LEADERSHIP
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Andy Anderson in "The Growth Spiral" (1993) covers "Finding the People" in chapters. two (The Value of Enrollment) and three (The Value of Prospects). Anderson, like Flake, wants a Sunday school class roll and attendance taken for Sunday school. Anderson wants an "enrollment" of every church member (even though God has his own records). Without records people can come and go and no one can follow up on those absent. He states "enroll anyone, anywhere, at any time, if they agree to being enrolled."

Whether it is small groups or the Sunday school, Anderson states: "The Sunday School enrollment is the most important statistic in the church. It is more important than the attendance, the offering, . . . because, to a large degree, it controls these items." This statement bothered me the first time I read it since most congregations are judged and compared by worship attendance, membership, and adherents. Yet, John Ellas points out that the ratio of the Sunday school and worship service is a major institutional factor for a congregation's growth or decline. (See July issue #1 for Ellas's evaluation at http://webminister.com/mailing/home.htm . In other words, as the Sunday school goes, so goes the church. For now, let's accept Anderson's statement as true and observe how he develops the church growth spiral.

Ministry begins at the moment of enrollment with a persons name, address, age, needs, etc. Attendance, contributions, baptisms are controlled or affected by the enrollment. Anderson works on 13 weeks (a quarter of a year) for goal setting and planning for the next 13 weeks.

Another rule of thumb, "if the average attendance is less than 40 percent of the enrollment there are weaknesses" The congregation is not calling upon all those enrolled who are absent and inviting them again to services. Thus, enrollment should be between 40% and 60% of attendance.

The next factor is the number of active prospects which should be twice the enrollment. Anderson recommends a "Director of Prospecting" to oversee all outreach activities and that each class should have an outreach director.

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4. CHURCH INTERNET WEB SITE
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Many years ago, an old saying was "be prepared so that IF the hard disk fails, one can recover all information." This saying has been modernize to "be prepared so that WHEN the hard disk fails, one can recover all information." Well, the webminister had some hardware problems as a result of lightning and a thunderstorm. This was despite the use of a surge protector. Fortunately, no information was lost, only the inconvenience of time and a thinner wallet, and loss of some favored setting in what can be considered as an "upgrade" in hardware.

Now, what is needed is a new virus that my virus checker will miss!

The next few issues of the Newsletter will cover the benefits, limitations, and hazards of "Cascading Style Sheets" (CSS).

Visit http://w3.org the web site where Internet standards are published.

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5. BOOK RECOMMENDATION
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By Internet standards, Danny Goodman "Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference" (1998) is an old book. However, this readable book discusses many cross-platform compromises among the browsers, cascading style sheets, the use of script, and the changes in HTML tags. Many tags like FONT are "being deprecated in HTML in favor of font attributes available in style sheets." Goodman, however, states that many elements will have backward compatibility with web pages designed for older browsers.

"Dynamic HTML" can be bought from an on-line bookstore for $39.95, less discounts, plus shipping and handling.

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6. SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE
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Visit http://www.mindspring.com/~kkbooks/abc and its links.

Ineed your comments, so e-mail me at webminister@webminister.com.

Let me know if you want to "unsubscribe."

In His Service,