We Need “First Contact Churches”
Would your Parish or Mission be willing to be a “first contact Church” for inquirers looking for an Orthodox Church to visit? We have had contact with inquirers from all fifty states and over 25 foreign countries. Many of these people will eventually make a first visit to an Orthodox Church. We often have listeners who have never attended an Orthodox Church ask us “where should I visit?” Sometimes we can make a recommendation, but most of the time we just have to tell our listeners to go to a phone book or Orthodoxy in America and start calling parishes or just show up at a local parish and then email us about the experience.
We’d like first time visitors to have a little better chance of finding a welcoming Church. To help with that, we want to put up a directory of “Contact Parishes” on our website.
If your Church would like to be a “Contact Parish”, this is what we ask:
1. If you are a parishioner, we need your priest’s permission to list your parish or mission.
2. We prefer that your Church have an active and up to date website with current contact information, service times etc. (A Church address, phone number and email address for your priest or contact person will do if that is all that is available.)
3. If your Church has a website, we ask that you place a link to our program on your website as an “Our Life in Christ Contact Church”. We will provide you an image for your website if you need one.
4. We ask that your Church supply the requests in your local area for the “Free Orthodox Study Bible” to non-Orthodox listeners. This is the New Testament paperback version. We have temporarily discontinued the offer due to overwhelming demand, however we have a backlog of requests we need to fulfill. No specific area in the United States has more than five or six requests at this time. We will be glad to negotiate this if it is a financial hardship on a Mission. We will provide cover letters, addresses and contact information of those who are requesting the Bible.
These are our first ideas and we are open to suggestions and comments. If you are interested in becoming a “Contact Church” visit our website and drop us an email.