Church hopping observations
As a retired pastor I've had a lot of fun visiting various congregations in our travels. I've just done a blog entry of my observations. Even if you haven't been in the habit of attending churches i...
Forum Discussion
This is an excellent thread. There are 1.3 million Americans living in an RV. Most by choice and many in their 20's and 30's working from the RV, following the seasons, and earning money through the internet and other professions and jobs that are easily accomplished by not being in one place, going to one job location, and living in a stick and brick.
Most churches have traditionally catered to permanent full time church members and not transient full time RVers. Visitors were always welcome but they were not the mainstay of the church and everybody knew it. Maybe it is time for churches to re-think some of their basic instituational ways to make it easier for RVers to find the church, advertise that the church welcomes visitors with open arms and the visitor is not a commodity that is here today and gone tomorrow but treated the same as if they would be there forever, and make it easy for RVers to use the church, perhaps even having places to park on Sat night on church property. Many churches allow traveling bicycle riders to camp on the property, so expanding that to an RV that is self contained probably would not be a huge issue as long as local ordinances allow it. Maybe even have sermons that are motivational and inspirational and geared at least in part to visiting folks. It is a new frontier for churches to reach out to; a market that traditionally is not been all that church oriented, perhaps because some of the policies of the church. Of the 1.3 million Americans living in RV's, if only 10 percent went to church on a Sunday would be a huge amount of people. 130,000 people would fill most professional stadiums; some almost twice. This is a market the church should consider.
I am glad you as a pastor are seeing it from the other side and maybe you can be instrumental in beginning to effect change even if only on a small scale in the places you attend.
Most churches have traditionally catered to permanent full time church members and not transient full time RVers. Visitors were always welcome but they were not the mainstay of the church and everybody knew it. Maybe it is time for churches to re-think some of their basic instituational ways to make it easier for RVers to find the church, advertise that the church welcomes visitors with open arms and the visitor is not a commodity that is here today and gone tomorrow but treated the same as if they would be there forever, and make it easy for RVers to use the church, perhaps even having places to park on Sat night on church property. Many churches allow traveling bicycle riders to camp on the property, so expanding that to an RV that is self contained probably would not be a huge issue as long as local ordinances allow it. Maybe even have sermons that are motivational and inspirational and geared at least in part to visiting folks. It is a new frontier for churches to reach out to; a market that traditionally is not been all that church oriented, perhaps because some of the policies of the church. Of the 1.3 million Americans living in RV's, if only 10 percent went to church on a Sunday would be a huge amount of people. 130,000 people would fill most professional stadiums; some almost twice. This is a market the church should consider.
I am glad you as a pastor are seeing it from the other side and maybe you can be instrumental in beginning to effect change even if only on a small scale in the places you attend.
