The Doors

For the last decade The City Church Canterbury has run a successful student work, built on the foundations of discipleship and mission. However, whilst the core elements have remained constant, the way in which they have been applied has constantly changed. Andy Chevalier (The City Church Canterbury) shares how the student team has approached their efforts in 2008/2009, and the strategy they have employed to see more students reached than ever before.

Student work in Canterbury is busy.  This year we have run outreach events, socials, student services and fresher cell groups. We try to meet up with every student who comes through our doors, get them involved in church life, train them and equip them to serve. Currently a total of 160 students regularly attend our events and yet we live in a city of 30,000 students most of whom never set foot inside a church.

If we wanted we could run plenty of events for students packed with fellowship, worship and doctrinal teaching and perhaps 100 would walk through the door and deepen their commitment to Jesus. Likewise we could run curry nights or gigs and maybe a few thousand would attend with only a vague notion that Jesus exists.

We realised that what we needed was a strategy that meant we could engage with any one of the 30,000 students in Canterbury, no matter where they were, to help them move forward in their journey with Jesus. What we needed, was the doors…

At The City Church Canterbury we planned our year around 9 doors of commitment. This is the theory: the bigger the door, the less committed you have to be to walk through it and therefore the more people we expect to attract. The smaller the door, the higher the level of commitment and therefore less people will walk through.

Door 1: Outreach

This is our biggest door. We have undertaken various missions over the course of this year, the largest of which was Mission Unavoidable. The objective was simple: 100 students spent 100 hours of freshers’ week making the name of Jesus famous on the campuses of Canterbury. 

Our week structured around 4 H’s:

Hello Campus: We positioned buskers around the campuses and handed out flyers about the church. Not terribly creative but there you go!

Hit and Run: Imagine 17 students in a mini bus, driving to one of the residential areas on campus, jumping out armed with free toilet rolls, lollipops and baked bean tins all with stickers on bearing the faces of the Student Workers and recommendations of the top 5 coffee shops or restaurants in town. We gave out these items for a frenzied 3 minutes and then hopped back into the bus to drive off into the sunset!

Have a Drink on Me: Students wearing a blue City Church t-shirt went into a bar and announced that they would buy a drink for the first fresher who asked them. This created immediate opportunity to welcome someone and engage them in conversation.

Homeward Bound: It is not uncommon to see students drunkenly spilling out of Canterbury’s nightclubs at 2am, so we took our mini bus and gave freshers lifts back to their residential areas. Brilliant fun!

During this week we spoke to hundreds if not thousands of people. This is the only contact we’ve had with most of them. But that’s ok… They are through door number one.  It required next to no commitment from them and many poured through it.

Door 2: Socials

When I was at university, I found that my non-Christian housemates were most open to faith when they hung out at the pub with my friends from church and realised that Christianity was relevant to our 21st Century existence. Good socials are great opportunities for our friends to mix.

Recently we held a music night where we hired a local venue and asked a church member’s band to play. We then asked students to buy two tickets if they wanted to come; one for them and another for a guest. 

We had a fantastic evening with a real mix of people. The venue held 100 people and half of those have never set foot in a Sunday service – that would be far too much for them. It takes a little commitment to attend a social event so we expect less people to come through this door.

Likewise we gather people at the pub after our evening services and encourage students to invite their housemates to come even if they haven’t been to the service. That way people who would not want to come to a church service still meet lots of Christians who they get to know and like. Hundreds have been through this door.

Door 3: Church/In.vision

Our church services are very enjoyable. Those up the front use accessible language, try to cut out jargon and work hard to make sure the standard of worship and preaching is worth coming for. 

Our In.vision services are even better! These are our student-focussed evening services. Here we have tried to make the event as student friendly as possible using low lighting, a band jamming as you enter, video notices, interviews, a slick video survey from one of the campuses and the opportunity to anonymously text in questions during the preach. Our themes are much more readily applicable and the talks are bight sized. 

For example, during our series called Loving the Campus, on our ‘Sex on the campus’ night, we had a interview from a young married couple, a campus survey asking people ‘Is sex overrated?’ and had some fruity questions submitted!

So for Christians and anybody intrigued by what Christians do, our services are pretty good! However, have you ever noticed the slightly less accessible things we do in church? Speaking in tongues, hearing from a supernatural and invisible God, believing that a virgin gave birth and a dead man came back to life? For someone who isn’t a Christian we understand that our services contain elements that make them take a bit more commitment to come to. 

On top of that we ask people to give their details, which again is a higher lever of commitment but allows us to really track our numbers. So we’ve had 223 students through our third door.

Door 4: Meet Ups

We try to meet up with every student who fills in a form. Understandably meeting up with someone you may have only seen for a brief moment one Sunday takes even more commitment. Some people say no. And so we expect less people through this door.

Meet ups are nothing more than a coffee, sometimes one on one, sometimes in a small group. It’s a time for us to get to know new students and a chance for them to make a friend in you.

141 people have been met up with this year and most of them will have been met up with many times throughout the year.

Door 5: Fresher/Family Cells

We run both fresher and family cell groups. Our fresher cells give new students an easy route into the diverse set of people who make up church life. The freshers attend for two and a half terms, constantly being prepared and envisioned to see church as a place for people of all ages and backgrounds joining together, before being distributed into family cells.

Some freshers want to get involved in an all age family cell right from the off, which is fine! Cell shows an extra commitment to church life and we have had 133 through the cell door this year.

Door 6: Membership

Church membership is particularly important for the elders to know who they are accountable for. We run City Foundations courses every two months, which we encourage students to go on. Once again another, larger step of commitment.  102 of our students are currently members.

Door 7: Being Discipled

Discipleship involves regular contact and an accountable relationship.  Not everyone is going to confess their deep-rooted sins to you and ask you to spend time with them. This takes vulnerability and therefore another, deeper level of commitment. 90 students have come through this door.

Door 8: Serving on a Team

Our church functions through the service of its members. It takes 70 people alone to make a Sunday morning happen. But walking half an hour to get to church early to set up the chairs takes another level of commitment – less people are likely to walk through this door, and indeed, only 45 of our students have done it this year.

Door 9: Discipling Others

Taking time out to listen to, care for and take responsibility for someone takes a great deal of commitment. We currently have 11 through this door, discipling others.

At no point this year have we have had someone progress, for the first time, through all 9 doors.  But we have heard incredible stories of people coming to the pub one week, In.vision the next and going for a meet up the week after that.

The door strategy has been vital for us in two ways. Firstly it has taken some pressure off us. Having a large student work doesn’t mean that we need everybody to be equally committed to church life. We are expectant of a big fringe of people who aren’t yet committed to cell, whose next step is to have a meet up and deepen friendships. We are also expectant of large numbers who are being discipled to progress to begin discipling others.

Secondly it has helped us to appropriately focus our energies depending on the season of a student’s life. For example, in the first term we only really focussed on the first 5 doors. Then in the second term we focussed on the next 3. In the final term we tried to prepare students for next year where we will hope that they will get involved serving and discipling other people. Next term’s aim is to start getting more of our second and third year students through the serving and discipling doors.

We have found this to be a hugely helpful discipline in our strategic thinking this year. Why not try it for your student work!

Andy Chevalier
The City Church Canterbury