For years First Baptist Church, Covington, Louisiana, (the church where I have served as Senior Pastor for 23 years) has conducted a new member class which we call the Discovery Class. We bill it for new members and for potential members.
While we reach people who have recently joined our church, the majority of the group is made up of potential members or as we often describe it “people who are checking us out.” In the last couple of years, this has become a major outreach tool of First Covington.
All of this is fresh on my mind because we had our most recent Discovery Class this past Sunday afternoon. We had 36 people show up for a two and one-half hour class. Of that group, 23 people decided on Sunday night to join our church. Several of those came by profession of faith and baptism. This has become such a typical Discovery Class that we have added an additional class for the year, bringing us to a total of five classes. We will continue to evaluate and will add additional dates if this trend continues.
Your church may not need a new member class but ours does. What makes this work so well?
First, we believe we are answering the questions people are asking. We have honed our approach and content to deal with what they need to know. They want to know what we believe and why we believe it. We spend a significant part of our class talking about who we are and what makes us tick.
Second, we present the plan of salvation and allow people to confess their faith and join the church during the class. For whatever reason, this approach seems more and more to resonate with the people God is bringing to FBC Covington.
Third, the class gives this group of people the opportunity to meet the pastors and a number of our deacons. This helps them connect with the church (and it helps them size us up).
Fourth, people like to have some control over their decisions. They want to make decisions on their timetable and not be put “in a box.” This class seems to meet that need.
Finally, the class shows that new people are important to us, the kingdom of God, and to the future of FBC.
I couldn’t be more pleased with what our Discovery Class has become. I recommend something like it highly.
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2 Responses
AMEN.
This morning I had a reminder of a recent blog of yours & offer it as a reminder “His Name is One,” Shuma.
Jerry Landry (brother of my best friend who died in 1991, brought supplies to his parents in Metairie first week after Katrina, spoke at his Mother’s funeral, presided over his Dad & youngest brother’s funeral) sent me the following-
I never knew this little bit of history:
Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes. We just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes.. I went into a small gift shop to kill time. In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled, “Reflections on Pearl Harbor ” by Admiral Chester Nimitz.
Sunday, December 7th, 1941–Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.
Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet.. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat–you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked.
As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, “Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?” Admiral Nimitz’s reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice.
Admiral Nimitz said, “The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America . Which do you think it was?”
Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, “What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?” Nimitz explained:
Mistake number one : the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk–we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.
Mistake number two : when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America . And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.
Mistake number three: Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That’s why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America .
I’ve never forgotten what I read in that little book. It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it. In jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredricksburg , Texas –he was a born optimist. But anyway you look at it–Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.
President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.
There is a reason that our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST
Why have we forgotten? PRAY FOR OUR COUNTRY!
Why do we not as One celebrate and defend reminders of what God has done from being removed for future generations?
Thank you Jerry for sharing the Presence of God in US.
Blessings
What great news! Thanks be to God!