A Community Door Opener
by Don Maddox
When you first come to town, how can you quickly get to know community leaders?
The police chief, the mayor, the superintendent of schools-they know volumes about the community, they shape public perceptions of your congregation, they can make or break community support for your church’s outreach and activities. But how do you get acquainted? Many of these prominent citizens do not attend church, or if they do, not yours.
I know if I announce myself as Pastor Maddox at a reception desk, I’ll likely hear, “She’s in conference,” or “He can’t be disturbed, but if you care to leave your card, I’m sure he’ll get back to you.”
But thanks to a modest and enjoyable investment of time each week, I talked at length with over thirty opinion leaders of Corona, California, where I recently pastored.
How did I do it?
I became a newspaper columnist.
It led to greater public awareness of our church, relationships with the people we needed to know when our church prepared community events, and a natural marketplace forum for evangelism.
Conceiving the column
On a trip to Dallas, I bought a local newspaper and enjoyed reading an interview column in it. Someone had asked a community leader questions such as “What was your first job?” “Who is your hero?” and “What’s the best advice you ever got?” The questions introduced me to the person and humanized him.
I had been struggling with how to get to know community leaders back in Corona. Suddenly it hit me. Why don’t I write a similar column for back home? I’ll get to know our leaders in the same way, and they’ll get to know me.
I wrote a letter to the editor of our paper, the Corona-Norco Independent, proposing a weekly column similar to the one I’d seen. I would interview prominent citizens-the newspaper could pick which ones-and ask them an established set of nonthreatening questions (Most people think my job is . . . My favorite restaurant is . . . I grew up in . . .). And I’d do it for free.
The editor called and said, “Go get a couple of interviews, and we’ll see what happens.” I sat with the chief of police, the executive director of the chamber of commerce, the mayor, and the superintendent of schools; wrote the columns; and turned them in. Nothing happened for a year. Then a new editor began and said, “We’d like to go with it.”
I spent sixty to ninety minutes each week in contacting the person, conducting the interview, and writing the column. The established format made it easy to write. Then, each Friday, it appeared on the front page of the Community section of our newspaper.
The payoff of print
Writing the column helped me build a relationship with the editor of the paper. Early one winter our community shelter ministry was having trouble getting the local armory opened, as had been promised for use during colder weather. I alerted the editor, and a subsequent front-page story helped rectify the problem.
The column put me in touch with a wide range of people in my community, and as every pastor knows, it’s hard to minister without those contacts. A couple of months after interviewing one leader, he called and said, “Don, I have to write a eulogy for a colleague. Can you give me some advice on how to write it?”
But most important, the conversations provided a natural bridge for evangelism. One statement I asked people to finish-“Church is . . .”-brought interesting give and take. In fact, following my interview, the executive director of the chamber of commerce decided to visit our congregation, and later I welcomed the director into membership.
Before, I’d never thought of using the newspaper as a way to build contacts with the community. It’s been news to me.
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