We had the biggest event at St John’s Ashfield for decades last Friday night – we’ve called it ‘Cinema in the Cemetery’, and over 4 weeks we had 800 people onto the property, including 400-500 last Friday night.
Four things stood out about it
- The entire project was totally member initiated and executed. Some great gospel hearted people called an open meeting of our evening congregation to talk about how to connect with local community members. They came up with a few terrific ideas (I was overseas at the time!) and Cinema in the Cemetery was one of them. A few agreed to drive the project, and we made use of our project structure (see here for a description of how it works). It was a beautiful moment of the body of Christ being the body of Christ.
- As we thought about it why do this thing, we realised that it was possible to run an event that was a combination both of blessing the community in some (even small) way, and at the same time making a connection – it didn’t have to be an either / or. The other thing is that we are here for the long haul – it’s OK to build links and connections with people slowly, that possibly bear ministry fruit in months or years. That’s not the only events we want to run, but it’s OK to some events with that in mind.
- We got media coverage, which was great. The media snowball works like this (as far as I understand): the papers run a story, the radio stations pick it up that morning / afternoon, and the TV channels report on it that evening. We had a perfect storm like this. The Telegraph ran a story on Friday morning, I did 3 radio interviews on Friday afternoon, and the Network 10 program ‘The 7pm Project’ covered it on Friday night (or at least they would have if their technology had worked. What i learnt was: don’t be afraid of media. They seem to more or less hate us, but that ain’t always true. Figure out what you want to say and make sure what you say both responds to them and is on message. I had a cute line about the difference between a graveyard (a place for people to rot) and a cemetery (a Christian word, a place for people to sleep – and then wake up!)
- It not often in church life that things work out better than hoped for! We’ve had lots of people say, ‘when’s the next one?’, and a facebook group of 100 people. We had planned to stop this week, but are rethinking – if there’s momentum there, absolutely best to go with it!
It was a great start to the year, and we’re praying for God to keep using it and other things we do!
Wow. My new church has one of the *greatest* graveyards… I mean cemetaries… I have ever seen. This kind of event would be perfect for us. Kudos to your event team for such a great idea.
Great idea and exciting to see member-driven creativity too. Your cemetery is indeed a great blessing for all kinds of reasons.
Losing the cemetery-around-the-church was a loss for Christian mission. It is great symbolically and emotionally for the gathering of the community to include (or at least be amongst the symbols of) the faithful departed. Not least, this symbolism shows that the dead are still journeying with us, the pilgrim people, and that they share the same hope as us (rather than having already arrived at their hope).
glad it’s been going so well!
Heh Andrew – to helps others think the idea through in their context. How difficult were the technical issues and how big was the open space you used? St John’s has very big grounds compared to most churches.
The other thing issue I’d add is that when it comes to media coverage of the ‘church’, the key is breaking stereotypes.
In this case the fact you chose some films that were ‘left field’ for a church (Chinese martial arts, horror) made the story into a much bigger headline.
Andrew –
1) have you got any idea which media/communication form was the most effective. I would have thought front page of the local rag was pretty important (especially if most people attending were locals).
2) were the crowds genuine non-churched of neighbouring Christian youth groups???
Jeremy,
not too sure about the technical issues, but seemed pretty easy – just a data projector, laptop and speakers. The space is good, just plain grass, about 1200m2. We actually went for the smallest of our spaces, to add to the atmosphere!
Jeremy,
the media thing was very interesting.
We did get front page coverage of the local paper, and the feeling there is that they are almost as keen to find any story with an angle as we were to get the free advertising! I am convinced this is an untapped area of possibility for creating presence in our communities.
And as far as we could tell, the crowds were virtually all unchurched people – really exciting.
The other thing is that the facepage group worked for us as well. And it’s crucial, since it will allow us to contact people again in the future.
On reflection, I think the thing that kicked it all off was the local paper, which then led to the Tele, and it all went from there.
Very hard to predict!
To answer Jeremy’s question about the technology in a bit more depth:
Churches running an event like this need
1) A big screen. Nobody will want to come and watch a screen that’s hardly any bigger than their new LCD at home. We didn’t have a large portable screen available so the team constructed one from a big piece of heavy-duty white fabric. It ended up working well but took a fair bit of work for them to set up every Friday night.
2) A bright enough projector. The team tested out the projector and screen in advance to check it would be effective under the light conditions. A projector that is OK for showing song lyrics isn’t necessarily bright enough to show a movie convincingly.
3) A pro-level PA system. The team used CCIW’s system that we keep for these kinds of events – 300+300w amp, 12″+horn PA speakers. The speakers built into a projector, or computer speakers, won’t have nearly enough power for an outdoor event.
4) A way to get power to the venue safely, and the patience to set everything up neatly so the crowd aren’t tripping over cables.
5) Licences to screen the movies in public. If your church has a CVLI licence (cvli.com.au) you’re covered to screen movies distributed by participating distributors, BUT you’re not allowed to advertise the titles or stars. The Cinema in the Cemetery team decided advertising the titles was necessary, so purchased screening rights from each film’s distributors – about $200 or so per title, I believe.
Thanks Tom, that’s really helpful
Hi Andrew,
Just wondering what your thoughts are on follow up? Have there been plans put into place about further connecting with the crowds that have attended? Thanks
Sounds like a great start to the year.
If only we still lived in Ashfield! Cool idea, and great to see the project system working smoothly. Your parishoners reall y dug the idea, I got a few passionate invites. I wonder whether putting it on again is the best follow up. Maybe a film club (like a book club) would both fit with the vibe of the event and give scope for deeper connection and discussion.
well done
I’ve LOVED this idea since I heard about it. I’m glad it went s well. Actually it’s not hard to predict the media thing. It usually goes the way you expected it to: paper to little broadcast to big broadcast. ANd yes, the local papers are really desperate for anything interesting unusual in the community. And no they’re not reflexively anti-church, and if they are you are more than capable of replacing that story in their head with the more compelling story you have. You’re a media natural it seems: even working out a good soundbite. Next step is to get yourself in the secular listings: fun things to do, because you’ll only get a few more bites at the news cherry. And facebook is fine, but you should find an influential website or two. P.S. You’re playing a very long game here. You’ve persuaded people christians are not all complete dags. It’s a good start.
“I see dead people” gotta show 6th Sense next