I recently moved to a small town in MS. I attended an AME Church and had a feeling of belonging. The problem is there are no members attending. How and What can I do to promote interest?

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2003

Answers

Sister Marion welcome to the board and congratulations on a successful move to your new town. It is so stressful moving to a new place especially if it is a small town. I pastor a church in a small town in Montana. (I moved here from New York City. And the first thing I want to say is that evangelism techniques that work in the big do not necessarily work in a small town. In small towns everyone knows each other and the new person on the block is the outsider and has to win the trust of the community. First things first PRAY! And know every great movement began with one person, every A.M.E church began with one or two people and then gres. The next step is to sit with the Pastor and get a sense of church history. Is your town a farming town? Learn all that you can and ask your pastor if you can visit some of the members who have not attended in a while to get them back to church. I would say the most important thing is to go to God in prayer and ask for his help. I have a website for small and rural churches in our denomination. It is for support and not an official A.M.E organization. It might be helpful and if you are interested please join us for support. We even have a christian church in India that is apart of our support group. Feel free to email me and I will help in any way I can. I can honestly say everything I have learned about the A.M.E church and how to pastor a healthy a.m.e church I have learned from this discussion board. The website is called S.A.R.C.R (Small and rural churches united)

www.ourchurch.com/member/s/sarcu

On Jan. 20th the site will be updated and will feature articles on small churches in an urban setting.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2003

Oops! Sis. Marion I am so sorry for all the typo's in the above post. I hope you can figure out what I was trying to say. And my website is called S.A.R.C.U (small and rural churches united) alas I am an independent diabetic, I had just eaten breakfast and my insulin had not kicked in. Now it has;-) Again welcome to the board and we have some wise sages on the board that will be great mentors to you. God bless.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2003