Lessons from a Puerto Rican Hillbilly (Part 4)

I'm in Israel and so I'm having a guest blogger - Kevin Colon. He's one of my favorite people but, more importantly, started a church in what may be the most difficult place in the United States - Boulder, Colorado. Kevin is the real deal and we can learn a lot from him. Here's Kevin:

Ok…let’s do a little recap action:
* You’ve learned to be you first (people will come to trust you before they trust Jesus)
* You’ve learned to be about Jesus first and the church second. (which may mean you won’t have a job…woo-hoo!)
* You’ve learned that it’s going to take a while to really reach people that are far from God.
* You’ve learned that the art of apology is a crucial evangelistic tool

So…here’s one last nugget for you.

Stop doing so many of your own events.

Church events gather Christians.

Early on…year one…we started doing this cool thing early on called “Mom and Pop’s Night Out” Five hours of babysitting for $5 per family. Now that’s a deal. We rented out the school, we brought in bouncy houses, we fed the kids dinner, we showed a movie on the big screen, we had goodie bags on the way out, we even had t-shirts and they weren’t lousy. We advertised the heck out of it and it was a HIT!

We did it five times all together….enough times to really get to know our clientele and guess who they were…..YES! CHRISTIANS! Oh no! What the…?!? That’s not what we wanted!

We let go of that soon after we found out.

Later, about a year and a half in, we did Preview Services. Five of them. Great crowds. But all Christian, all members of other churches, all just checking out the new kid on the block. UGG!!!

We let that go, too.

So we did what I had heard some rogue guys did. Instead of doing our own events, we committed ourselves to our town’s events, our Home Owner’s Association’s events, our Chamber of Commerce events.

ChiliFest—we’re there
Spring Fling—count on us
4th of July Celebration—no problem
Road-side Clean up day—how many people do you need?
Family Skate with Santa—do you want us to wear hats?

Within a few months I got a call from the Mayor’s office and they wanted me to come in to the Town Board meeting. I thought we messed up. I thought we had done something wrong. I thought we were getting kicked out of town. But instead they presented our church with the most outstanding gift I think I’ve ever received. It was a Proclamation. I still don’t know exactly what the heck it is…but it was one of those fancy political ‘whereas this’ and ‘whereas that’ type documents and it was urging the people of our town to follow the spirit of volunteerism that our church had exhibited. And that document is in the books. It will forever be in the history books of our city.

I don’t have my diplomas hanging up on my walls but I do proudly display that Proclamation from the Board of Trustees as one of the greatest achievements of our ministry. And you wouldn’t believe how many doors that have opened. The best part? Our church has a rep in our town. They know us. They know what we’re about. They know we’re here for them. And they know that we’re not going anywhere. I like to think that maybe God is smiling about that.

- featured on newchurches.com