Right now, I feel that the relationships in our church are not as strong as could be. We are a very small, growing local church, and I believe we could be better in our relationships.
What types of things can we do or what have you all done to improve relationships in your churches?
***I would like for them to see the fun side of us, and not just the preaching pulpit side.
At one church I was a part of, my husband and I decided to form a cell group called the "Church Fun Committee." A group of us would get together once a month, grab breakfast or lunch and hang out, and plan a fun event to invite the rest of the church to attend.
A few events we did:
*A churchwide, traveling Clue game. We make up our own cards - using actual people, rooms, and objects from the church (i.e. It was the Pastor, in the prayer room, with a hymnal!). Some of the feedback we got from our newer members/attendees was that it was really helpful for them to match names with faces, as well as get to know who the leaders were in the church (all the "suspects" were staff, deacons, or ministry leaders!).
*An 80's party - bring on the CHEESE!!! We served snacks, everyone dressed in their idea of what people looked like in the 80's (it was pretty funny to see kids' and teens' ideas of what we all looked like, but the adults had a blast digging out their old prom dresses and stonewashed jeans), and we showed the old mid-80's Christian teen drama "Hi Tops."
*Along the whole "Clue" idea, we also did a live Clue mystery dinner for our Valentine's Banquet (this was at a different church). We had a lot of single people in that particular church, so if we'd done a "couples" dinner, it would have pretty much consisted of deacons and staff. We had a core group of actors who stayed in character the entire night - we used "Master Detective" to give us more characters, lol! - and then each person who signed up was also given an alias - so everyone got to dress up as something. We ate a nice dinner, and each table had a few cards and had to work together to solve the mystery. My DH emceed the event, and was "the butler." We had an absolute blast!!
(In a twist, my best friend and I decided that our characters were going to hate each other, so we sat at separate tables and paid the teenagers - our servers - to play nasty tricks on each other all night!)
These are some of our more successful "all church" events that we've done at various churches. If you want more info on any of them, feel free to post questions...private message me...whatever! I've got pictures from both of the Clue events! We're currently planning a "family night out" at the end of April, where we'll show the first Narnia movie.
I think the biggest key is fellowship! In and outside of the church walls. I recently heard a Pastor say, true family relationships within a church are not made on Sunday morning! They have to be nutured outside the walls. I agree with this Pastor. Our church here has a monthly finger foods fellowship after our pm service. We also have set up family outings to a local public pool and had a few cook outs at a local lake. We make it a point to go to these events and just be us no walls no pretense just plain ole us. We have found here people just want us to be open. Which is not always easy as pastors but it has helped. At the church we were last at, we had many dinners outside the church, rented the "Y" so families could swim together, had volleyball games set up and had a big BBQ (that church was 350 strong). They also have gotten involved in car racing where the pastor and the youth pastor participate with other pastors, the money earned from ticket sales goes towards missions. They have also had camping trips for the whole church to participate in. Anything were you can play games be silly and just be are great ways to connect with the families of your church.
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"How can I keep from Praising Your Name, How can I ever say enough, How amazing is Your Love!"
Retreats! Retreats are wonderful for breaking down walls. Sometimes they may have a focus such as: Marriage, choir, family fun, etc. Also, small group fellowships help.
