January marked two years of weekly outreach at the Spokane Washington Bus Plaza (STA). Approx. 1500 copies of Science and Health have been given out. This new website, which is still being developed, gives glimpses of communication tips, lessons learned and more. (Archives posted soon.)
After talking one-on-one with a few thousand people, they have come to some inescapable conclusions concerning their particular clientele, which may be useful to us in Wisconsin:
1. Our movement is essentially unknown and invisible, especially to those under age 50;
2. many people are open to the Comforter's message...they just have to hear it in ways that are in tune with contemporary thought;
3. there are very, very few folks (maybe a dozen out of our thousands of discussions) who attack Christian Science or challenge its treatment of children;
4. the questions we have most needed to be prepared to answer are "What is Christian Science?" (in 25 words or less!), "What can I do to escape from an addiction?," "How can you say there is no devil? -- it says so in the Bible, which is the Word of God," (these questions may vary a bit, but represent the essence of what we Christian Scientists need to know); and
5. we need some better mechanisms to reach and to begin the conversation with newcomers and then some better mechanisms for continuing dialogue/study with them, as well as, new Sunday School graduates...and each other.
This is so helpful!
ReplyDeleteI've done dozens of Science and Health booths and have worked with others who have done booths and I have to agree with the above - there is a lot of openness to the ideas in Christian Science.
It seems to me that there are five main groups of people who have inquired abtou Sciecen and Heatlh
Those who know nothing about it, but were curious.
Those who had heard of it and had questions.
Those who had a grandmother or relative or a friend who was a CSist.
Those who used to be a Csist or went to a CS Sunday School
Those who are looking for an argument (this happened very rarely - like the above, I saw very few folks who were negative)
I agree with #4 and #5!