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Way In: Establishing a successful welcome course, for people in transition

By Rob Merchant.

Curate at St John's, Harborne

Setting the scene

When Tamsin and I arrived at St John's, Harborne, Birmingham to start our job-share curacy in 2001, we joined the staff team of a large vibrant church with a long history of witness in the local community. With any church a principal difficulty is bringing new people from a place of anonymity to a place of belonging and St John's was no different. The desire to 'belong' is a key part of identity and purpose, and in an increasingly mobile workforce and 24-hour society, Christians are affected by this desire just as much as non-Christians.

However, in all our 'reaching out' activity, we are often good at grabbing hold of people who are outside of a relationship with Christ. But we seem less concerned about Christians who are new to a church, or new to an area, who have experienced transition in their job or life and who need to find somewhere new to belong.

The situation

St John's ran 'Welcome Evenings' once a term, where all the people who have filled out welcome cards were invited. It was hosted by one of our small groups (we call them C-groups) who focused on this activity. Staff members from the church attended and introduced themselves, explaining what they did and saying a bit about the church. In the C-group structure there was an application form that people new to the church could fill out in order to be put in contact with a suitable group.

But the administration of the C-group system was a nightmare and wasn't working. The welcome evenings were great, but what happened afterwards? People just disappeared into the woodwork again and often disappeared completely from St John's.

The development of Way In was in direct response to an urgent and practical need in St John's to keep hold of Christians who were new to the church and we've found that it has worked in quite extraordinary ways.

What happened?

The first course was run in our home. Seven people attended who were all in their 20's. We cooked nice food for them and they came back every week! I wrote the first draft of the course week to week responding to where this group of people, who were all new to St John's in the previous year, were in their journey into the family of St John's.

It was remarkable to watch this group of people grow together and form relationships over the eight weeks of Way In. During this time I discovered the importance of designing questions and a course that not only responded to people's journey, but also helped to shape and direct that journey.

At the end of the eight weeks we had a final supper and the seven formed a brand new C-group, which has gone from strength to strength ever since and of which I've been a member (not a leader) during my time in St John's.

After trying it in the home and seeing it work, we decided to try Way In within a church setting to see if it would work in a different environment. Once again we saw relationships among people grow and develop. Further, we were finding that increasing numbers of people were describing how Way In had helped them feel that they belonged at St John's, that they knew people and were known themselves. It was a great feeling to walk into church on a Sunday evening and see members of Way In saying hello to one another and then, because they had the confidence of knowing people already, go off and talk to complete strangers!

What is Way In?

The course is an eight week thematic look at the New Testament Letter to the Church at Philippi. Each week we look at a key discipleship theme, but we set it in the context of each course participant's own journey from one church into another. We explore where people have been hurt and need to forgive, or are grieving the loss of a wonderful church, or are expecting St John's to be just like their last church and feeling frustrated when it isn't - and all this in the first three weeks!

Each evening begins with supper, goes through to a 10-15 minute talk (maximum) and then people break into small groups for discussion and prayer. During the development of Way In we've even introduced a day away based on the idea of spiritual journey which has been a huge hit with course participants.

What have been the benefits?

So far St John's has run six Way In courses with over 140 people attending in total (it's amazing how many new people come in through your church's doors without you ever realising). Of those people we've retained about one hundred, as some people have moved on with changing jobs. But we have kept people who were uncertain about St John's. Several people were uncertain about joining the church and came in the morning and went elsewhere in the evening or vice-versa. But they came on Way In and that was the deciding factor. They built relationships and decided to stay and get involved.

We have grown new small groups and new leaders. Because people felt that they belonged quicker, our giving increased (in fact we introduced 'how to give' into the Way In course). Way In became the course we offered to anyone new to the church who was a Christian, which meant that Alpha was full of mainly non-Christians, who weren't scared off by loads of Christians attending who knew the 'right' answers. A non-Christian environment meant that we've seen 70%-80% of people attending Alpha becoming Christians.

But the greatest blessing for me has been seeing people grow in relationship to Jesus and to one another. It is wonderful to watch people join Way In and go on to all kinds of roles in the church as their relationship with Jesus has been nurtured and flourished through friendship.

Should my church do Way In?

YES! One of the key themes we found from Way In evaluation forms was the question, "Why don't other churches do Way In?" So it's available for free on the web. There are leaders, participants and administrator handbooks, the day away material and PowerPoint slide show for the day away - basically everything you could need. You download it, print it out and enter your church's name or details into the relevant sections. The leader's booklets even contain a script of each talk or a bullet point structure if you want to create your own talk.

The only thing that is asked of anyone who does download and use Way In is this - make it relevant to your local need, but please don't change it beyond recognition, simply because we've found that, if you follow what's there, it works!

If you would like additional information or would like to look at or download the Way In material, please go to www.wayin.info or email contact@wayin.info.