Free Classroom Space--and a Crowd to Fill It
Pastor James Schackel has faced the same pair of problems in two successive parishes: (1) no space in which to start a new adult Bible class and thereby relieve crowding in the existing class; (2) a contingent of members who skip class in favor of stopping by a restaurant en route to church. He's solved both problems at once by simply taking the Bible study to the restaurant. "When I was at Redeemer Lutheran in Salem, Oregon," relates, "there was a restaurant only two blocks from the church. I talked the manager into letting us put a class in his meeting room. People came, ordered from the menu, socialized a bit, and then we began our discussion of a book such as Keith Miller's Habitation of Dragons." "Here at Zion Lutheran" (Montrose, Colorado) "we've done the same thing in a restaurant, using an upstairs area while the general public eats downstairs. Some people have just coffee, or coffee and a sweet roll, while others order a full breakfast. We're currently going through Tour God Is Too Small by J. B. Phillips." The important thing is that a restaurant class appeals to a different kind of individual, one who probably is not active in the usual Sunday morning class anyway. "Our main class maybe lost a few in the beginning," says Schackel, "but it built right back up again. In the meantime, the restaurant class is drawing 12 to 20 people." Marjorie Ferrin, who with her husband, Paul, taught a restaurant class in San Jose, California, for six years, is another firm believer in the concept. Now that Bethel Church has completed larger facilites, her class had moved back to the church property, "but some of our people still wish we'd go back to the restaurant," she admits. "Two other groups—a college class and a single-adult class—are ...
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