The Thursday after Easter we did something we’ve never done before, at least not since I’ve been here. Several of us set up a booth at the Senior Health Fair held right next door at the Armory, and we spent three hours meeting and talking with scores of people. It was a grand success, a lot of fun…and an awful lot like work!
The idea came from Dan Holtsclaw, Pastor of Switz City Baptist Church and the new representative for WQTY, the radio station that airs our Sunday morning broadcast. He came to see me and said that the radio station’s parent company was sponsoring a health fair next door, and wondered if we would like to set up a booth of our own there. He said, “It occurred to me that we’ll have all these booths for their physical health, but nothing for their spiritual health.” I told him I’d run it by our leadership and see what they said.
Well, the response was an enthusiastic “Yes!” Immediately people started brainstorming ideas. In particular, the Board of Christian Education said, “These people will have grandchildren, and we can give them information about Vacation Bible School, the Treehouse and our AWANA program.”
I prepared a computer slide show with 70 “action shots” of last year’s Vacation Bible School and Christmas services, and this year’s AWANA Grand Prix and Easter services. We set up a screen and projector, and ran those pictures continuously the whole time.
We had a cooler full of ice and water bottles to give out (“a cup of cold water” given in Jesus’ name), and a Grand Prize consisting of a pretty basket just chock-full of goodies: a Christian movie, candy, and various other items. (We also had a flower in a pot for them to use as a prize for Bingo, but being good Baptists we left before they started playing.)
All in all, gave away a bunch of brochures and flyers, handed out 72 bottles of water, had 83 people register for our basket of goodies, and talked to lots and lots of really nice people. Then the radio station fed us a free lunch! They sure know how to keep Baptists happy.
Actually, the original plan was for several churches to go together to have a booth, but no other churches expressed much interest. So Dan Holtsclaw asked, “How would you feel about just you church having a booth by yourselves?” I said, “Hey, we’re Baptists: we think we’re the only ones anyway.” So we had a booth all our own.
And we had a total of seven people from our church there to man the booth, and enthusiastically talk to people about our children’s ministries. Most came and stayed for part of the time, but some were there the whole time. And we all agreed: there couldn’t possibly be a more enthusiastic ambassador for our church than Ruby Grindstaff!
It was a lot of work…but it was surprisingly enjoyable, and we made contact with a lot of people. That’s called outreach, and we need to do a lot more of it.
If you try to walk up to somebody “cold turkey” and start talking about Jesus, you’re not going to get very far with most people. But if you set up a table where people are already going to gather, give out free bottles of water and bouncy balls, and tell them we’ve got something their kids and grandkids will enjoy, why then they’ll thank you for it! And some of them will bring their kids or grandkids to VBS, or the Treehouse, or AWANA.
And then we can tell them about Jesus.
We’ll double-team them. Some of us can teach the kids. Some of the rest of us will talk to their parents and grandparents.
And we’ll get the chance, all because we set up a table and gave out stress balls and bottles of water. (Can you imagine what would happen if we gave out pill-minders? It boggles the mind!)
So let’s do it some more! There are children, and parents, and grandparents to reach!
I might even get over being at a Senior Health Fair.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor David