Richard

For Thundersley Congregational Church in Essex, a desire to be present in their community in ways that people might not quite expect has led them to experiment with creative approaches to outreach. For ten years, they have run an annual arts festival, designed to ‘surprise people a little bit’ when they discover it’s run by the church, using events like drumming workshops run by Christians to share the gospel in ways that capture people’s imaginations.

In previous years, they often ran specialist arts workshops in the mornings, followed by family activities in the afternoon, then different entertainment evenings – all designed to connect with people ‘outside’ of the church. ‘But when COVID hit last year, it really changed our program of what we were going to do,’ said Richard Keeler, who is an assistant minister at Thundersley Congregational Church with responsibility for community outreach. ‘As a church, we always want to be generous. We always want to get decent things into people’s hands.’ So, rather than running in-person workshops, they put together little goodie bags for people, with everything they would need to take part in a virtual version of the workshop. These bags included little bonus giveaways, like tracts – as well as a beautiful magazine-style edition of Mark’s Gospel, produced by Hope Together in partnership with Biblica.

"Just the way it’s presented kind of captures the imagination."

Richard Keeler, assiant minister at Thundersley Congregational Church

‘We used them as a bit of a blessing and a bit of an opportunity to surprise people that they were reading the Bible,’ said Richard. ‘Just the way it’s presented kind of captures the imagination.’ He described liking ‘the way it’s presented very graphically – like a little magazine’. Over the course of the online arts festival, over 60 people received copies of the gospel. The church have ordered more for this year’s festival, and plan to give them out ‘in a conversational way’.
‘I think a lot of people in this last season have been quite intrigued by God, and they’re not quite sure where to look,’ said Richard. ‘And if you say to them, “Open a Bible!”, it might be that it’s hard to know where to start. This just talks about Jesus! And Jesus is always a fantastic place to start. It’s very easy to engage with, so I would recommend it.’

Local people who have connected with the church through the arts festival have gone on to attend Alpha courses, and some have even joined the church. The annual event has also spilt over into year-round community activities, like a photography competition and a camera club that meets every month, attended by both church and community members.

Could these magazine-style Mark’s Gospels be perfect for helping you get the Bible into the hands of people in your community?

They are currently available from the Hope Together online shop.
 
After the success of Mark's Gospel, Hope Together and Biblica released Luke's Gospel in a similar magazine style. Both Mark's Gospel and Luke's Gospel are also available in digital editions.