Rob Jones, Las Vegas, NV
The first-century church went house-to-house in fellowship, teaching, and praying. We will need to change our thinking where we don’t feel so strongly that we need to get them into our physical building and go to where the people are. Maybe we should have smaller Bible Studies throughout the city and have more opportunities for people to gather – maybe in a coffee shop with one or two and let them organically develop. If we put more emphasis on that instead of our Sunday and midweek services, it would be more effective. I’ve met with some people every week. It might be months before they ever come to an actual service. But as long as you engage with them, there’s always the opportunity that at some point they will come to church and gather with people and worship as a body. But that takes time.
We’re a media-driven culture and we’re very visual. Everybody has a smartphone. It is a tool. Whether it be billboards, radio, television, or periodicals, I think we should utilize every tool made available to us to get the Oneness message out there.
If I had the finances, I would do billboards, digital boards, and advertise at bus stops. Beyond that, you could advertise in movie theaters when there’s a family-friendly movie being shown.
Collectively, I think we are doing a good job. The various Oneness organizations have their reach.
We do a lot of social media outreach and do a lot of target advertising. In our local community, we do door hangers and we have done a three-square food bank every month. It was a good opportunity for us to get our name out there, especially during COVID.