There is a church about 1/4 mile from our house. We visited the church for a while in 2004, but found it was a little formal and conservative for our tastes. I am only a suit/jacket/tie person if I am being compensated and Kimberlie has never been a dress girl. They also strongly encourage their members to send kids to the regional bible colleges, where students are disciplined for holding hands and such. The people are somewhat nice, though we got a clear signal that they looked down on the fact that Kimberlie “works outside of the home”.
Other than that, the church is fine. I did some technology work for them a while back. We attend festivals and other events there every blue moon and my kids even play Upward Soccer there.
Anyway, certain days of the week are “visitation days”, where the members are supposed to take tracts or flyers and canvas their communities to reach the lost. Now, this isn’t a small church: each week, nearly 1000 attend (according to numbers published in their bulletin) and every few years they are building new buildings or additions. I point this out so that you don’t think that this could be considered a “neighborhood church”. Rather, the members that we know are from communities all around, up to a 50-mile radius.
Our street is the closest possible residential street to the church. Every time the members go out to visit, they hit our street (and our house). EVERY TIME. It’s like the members are trying to see how they can “get credit” for evangelizing by putting out the least amount of effort. It synonymous with the whole Livestrong bracelet fad from a few years back: by buying that yellow bracelet for $1.00, it truly is, the least you can do to fight cancer.
Today's flyer from the church. We get tracts or flyers about twice weekly.
From my perception, this is complete laziness. Only one household in our neighborhood attends this church (and they aren’t the ones canvassing). Over half of our neighborhood is a different race than 99% of the church’s membership and it is an undiputed fact that churches in the south are still as segregated today as they were in the civil rights era. I note that to prove that they aren’t purposely targeting our neighborhood, but rather being lazy.
Wouldn’t it be a better use of their time and resources to visit their friends, family, and colleagues who could potentially be interested in the church? According to the church’s teachings, they should be giving ten percent of their income and significant amounts of their time to the church. Why wouldn’t they want to see their investment pay off?
Welcome to America, where even the churches are lazy.
