This past Sunday we did our first “Intro” 30 minute class for visitors and people new to our church. The aim of the class is to introduce people to our vision, values, doctrine, and mission. We explained it was like skipping rocks across all of these things, but wanted them to have a clear idea of who we are and what we are about so that they can evaluate if this is the community for them. If they choose to partner with us, we offer a Partners Class that goes into greater detail. The intro class was very successful. We had first time visitors, regular attenders, believers, non-believers, etc.

We gave summary explanation of the following and allowed for Q&A throughout. In all of this we continually reinforced that church is not an event to attend but a community on mission in the Gospel of Jesus. Naturally, this allowed us to communicate a central part of our philosophy of ministry—gospel-centered missional communities (City Groups). Afterward, a visitor shared a story he had read about life being like an old dilapidated castle that was going nowhere, and that it was eventually turned into a rocket launchpad. He compared our City Group focused church to the launchpad, not the dilapidated castle. I think he caught the vision. Pretty cool. Here’s what we covered:

• Welcome, names, how you found us, etc.
• Vision
• Governance
• Doctrine
• Community
• Mission

Here is my question: What do you cover for your Intro class? What have things have you done during the class that people found really helpful?