“What if the church building wasn’t just a building, but thousands of doors with each of them opening up to a different concept or
experience – and a journey that could change your world. Would you come?“
Did you know that the church actually has a
lot of different doors? The front door is the one we are most familiar with — the main worship service. This is how most people
become engaged with the church. But there are also side doors — ways that people are engaged by the church and eventually enter.
These side doors can be a youth group, service project, women’s group or any number of ministries that allow people to come into the
church.
The United Methodist Church has taken that concept one step further with its interactive website called
10 Thousand Doors
The website is jam-packed with news, features, videos, music, discussion forums, social networks,
Facebook and much more. Basically the idea is
to show all of the things the United Methodist Church is doing and to engage un–churched or un–connected people (especially the 18–34
demographic).
I’m not sure if there are literally 10,000 doors available through the
10 Thousand Doors website, but you’ll find hundreds of virtual
doors that will take you to a variety of places around the world where the United Methodist Church has a presence and is engaged in
vital ministry. The main home page identifies some of the doors as Listen, Watch, Read, Go/Do, Find, Talk and Now. Each of these
doors leads to other doors which open to a vast world of opportunities to become involved in what our church is doing.
So, a person entering the Watch door is able to watch people making a difference. Have a question or an opinion about prayer,
spirituality or current events? The Talk door will allow you to engage in conversation with others around the world. The Now door
features the latest headlines and allows users to see topical items on
Twitter. Through the “Friend Connect“ you can join several
social networks and participate in real–time conversations with other like–minded people. Finally, the Find door lets people search
for United Methodist churches near them.
Check out this website
10 Thousand Doors and do some exploring on your own. I think you’ll be intrigued by the many ways you can
actively participate.
