Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Becoming a Visitor-Friendly Church

Cody Francis

01 A Winning First Impression

02 From Greeting to Serving Part 1

03 From Greeting to Serving Part 2

04 Guest-Friendly Worship Services

05 Guest-Friendly Follow-up

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp, held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, we're grateful for your goodness and your mercies.

We thank you that we can discuss and learn and grow and plan for how we can have churches that are more open and ready to receive guests.

Now you remember 1 of the things we talked about on Monday was having churches that people would not be afraid to come to, right?

Both from a greeter standpoint, which we'll look at more today, but also from a physical standpoint as well.

We want it to be something that's going to represent our faith and something that is be going to be inviting and encouraging to people and so Amy with Family Ministries has a project that she's working on that I'd asked her to come and share about and so I'm gonna give you how much ever time you want to share about that.

And I'm going to give you the mic so that they can record you too.

So 1 of the things family ministries is such a joy.

My husband actually works with Pastor Cody in the ministerial department.

And so we get to work together and we visit a lot of churches.

And 1 of the things that we've noticed as we've gone around the churches is that some churches are very small and they don't have very much help.

So while they may have a little bit of finances that they could put toward a project, they don't have enough to pay like a contractor to come in and help do everything, but they could put in for supplies, but they don't have the manpower to be able to do it.

How many of you guys are from or have been in a very small church?

Okay, so you know what I'm talking about firsthand, right?

So we were thinking of ways that we could work together.

I have 2 older brothers and I have a younger sister and a younger brother, and we worked as a team.

And I don't know if you guys know my dad, Rich Sutton, but anyone who knows him knows that he believes that anything's possible.

You just have to work together or find the person who knows how to help you do what you're going to do, right?

And so we wanted to be able to help our families, our young adults be able to be connected with 1 another.

So we wanted to do something, we call it project restoration.

There's cards coming around where we can come together, we'll do a small mission trip, and we will come together as a people, and we'll help work on projects together.

So if you need landscaping done in your little church but don't have the manpower to do it, you can simply go to the website, fill out the form, and on the bottom, the last question says, we would be interested in having you come do something for our church, you can email me and let me know, hey, this is the project we have, could you come?

Or if you're interested in helping come together to make a difference, you may not be able to come to every trip, but you could come to 1 trip or 2 trips a year, then you can come and be a part and use your skills to help make a difference.

Or if you know young people, they are fantastic.

We had families, our first 1 was, you'll see it tonight at the main auditorium, we're gonna do a little bit of a video of what we did at St.

John's Seventh-day Adventist Church, and we had families come together, you see little kids working together and we were all together pitching in to make improvements for God's house that would not be as easily done if we don't all come together.

There were about 35 of us I think there that day.

And there was the collaboration and the family feeling, right?

We had people all over that came together at St.

And we were able to do a landscaping project.

So a few weeks later, they went out asking door to door for Bible studies.

And the next door neighbor lady they had made a connection with when she saw us all out working on the church landscaping and she's like you guys this looks so great right this is her neighborhood this looks so great and they when they came by 2 weeks later or 3 weeks later they she wanted to do Bible studies so I mean it's so cool right And we all can have a part together.

So Project Restoration is about building our churches back up for Christ, making them beautiful, making them visitor friendly so that people can say, hey, there's something happening at that little church, right?

And we can do that together where we might not be able to do it for ourselves.

And our next trip is going to be August 3.

They are, that's right, they are, they're hosting an Amen Clinic.

They want their community all come out, right?

But there's some things that could use some sprucing up.

So we're going to have a mission trip, local mission trip, so if you are interested in painting or landscaping, please sign up.

You may not be able to come to every 1, but you'll get the email that says, hey, we're doing a mission trip, okay?

You can sign up to be a part and make a difference for your own local church, but also coming together to work on other ones.

I'm thinking how small and how different can we work with people?

You tell us what your needs are and we'll see what God does.

Hey, I am just here to tell you God knows no limits.

It's really true Don't limit God God has he owns the cattle on a thousand hills Resources are not a problem and we can accomplish great things when we work together and we are blessed you guys We're blessed when we come together and work.

And we learn about brothers and sisters in Christ, right?

Someday we're going to all stand on that sea of glass together.

And we're going to be like, hey, remember when we, right?

You know, we're going to have that camaraderie, not just in our generation, but all the way back through Earth's history.

Some of our very best friends may have lived before the flood.

I mean, it's so cool to think about people that we've never met now, but we're going to all be together.

So Jesus is coming soon, and we want our churches to be places where God's people can come and they feel welcome, they're wanted, and it's a beautiful space that says, we love our God.

It doesn't have to be fancy, but It should be clean, it should be tidy, it should be something that says, we love our God.

This is his house and we want it to be beautiful for him.

And we want to help you guys make that difference.

And if we can all put our skills together, we can do that.

There's another survey that's out that's very similar to project restoration.

It's called the, we call it the skills survey.

It shows a picture of the 3 guys pulling each other up the mountain.

Have you guys seen anything with that around?

If you sign up for that, but that 1 has the benefit of the health clinic.

So anybody who has health skills, counselor, those sort of things, when there's a health side of it and then there's also the building side of it.

So if you sign up for both, you're not going to get double emails because we use something that filters out the double email thing.

But then you can also get health related ones too.

Series

Becoming a Visitor-Friendly Church

03 From Greeting to Serving Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Mentorship Matters

05 Building a Culture of Mentorship in the Church

1h 3m

Health Ministries Workshop

07 The Nuts and Bolts of a Great Cooking Class, Part 01

52m

Creating Joy in Everyday Life

03 Creating Joy in Everyday Life

46m

Mentorship Matters

04 Mentoring Other Adults

1h

Evening Plenary

04 Spiritual Weapons for the Crisis Ahead

1h 15m

Understanding Revelation 12-14

03 Revelation 13: The Two Beasts Part 1

1h 1m

Plenary

Our Mighty Intercessor

1h 3m

From Home to Eternity

02 Capturing the Joy of an Adventist Home

1h

The Coming Sunday Laws

03 Enduring the Sunday Law

1h 7m

Effective Wholistic Witnessing Among Refugees

01 Effective Wholistic Witnessing Among Refugees

48m

World's Problems and God's People

Session 2: Poverty

47m

Plenary

I Will Go

46m

Sound Doctrine