How many people do you know that enjoy going door-to-door? If you’ve done this yourself you know what I mean. Regardless of the purpose, spending a day going door-to-door takes courage and is not usually much fun.

Every year here at Christ’s Church of the Valley we spend several days working on our Strategic Plan. The process begins with improving our understanding of the “stakeholder.” Basically, who are the stakeholders and what are their needs? We usually review and discuss an updated demographic report as well as look at the previous year’s Key Performance Measures (KPMs) to renew our understanding of the target couple we refer to as “Perkiomen Pete and Paula” – our primary “stakeholder” aside from God of course.

Last year we did a couple of things a little differently. First, we involved everyone on staff in the process. Planning sessions prior have for the most part included Senior Staff only. Second, we went “door-to-door!” That’s right; we divided into four different teams and covered much of our target area going door-to-door with a four question survey. Aside from attempting to learn more about our target group, the purpose of the exercise was to help each staff member gain some personal perspective. There’s nothing like “rubbing shoulders” with the people we’re trying to reach in terms of really understanding where they are and where they’re coming from.

There was much story telling and discussion the following morning as we sat down to discuss the “data” and, just as important, our “experiences.” There were a number of specific interactions that I found to be interesting and in some cases down right surprising. They ranged from receptive and willing to answer our questions after having invited us in for a cold glass of tea, to slamming the door in our face after they found out we were from a church. I spoke to one guy who said that he had done some “lay preaching” in his past, but was now “no longer connected to the church.” How did this happen, I wondered. His insight as to what the church needed to do to attract people was completely “relational.” He said that the church needed to teach people that they need to focus on relating to others and treating each other better. Sounds pretty good to me!

We met in the afternoon immediately following our door-to-door exercise. Brian Jones, our senior pastor, asked everyone to give a one word response to “how they were feeling about the experience.” There were many responses to the question but for me the only word I could come up with was “needed.” I had a renewed appreciation for how much the world needs the local church. I left the experience more convinced than ever that I am in the right place … serving the local church with its mission to reach the lost!

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