COG7 Tulsa ministering at the Tulsa State Fair in 2010
Tulsa COG7 had a booth at the Tulsa State Fair way back in the early 1980s. This took a lot of work and financial resources and after a few years the Fair Booth project was dropped. Like many small congregations direct Evangelism efforts were not as much of a priority as they should have been over the years. So in 2010 we decided to do another booth at the Tulsa State Fair. This time we decided that the focus would be only on sharing the "Good News" of what God has done for us through His Son, Jesus Christ. We would not be "recruiting" for our local church congregation and would, in fact, minimize our name and doctrines.
We decided to create a newspaper to hand out at the booth. The newspaper would have the big headline of "EXTRA! EXTRA! Read All About it!" The front page article would compare the Good News we have to offer to that which the newspaper boys would cry out on a big event such as the end of World War II. Other articles in the newspaper would share the Good News in different and interesting ways and include a Crossword puzzle, cryptogram, etc.
Of course, with a new project like this the big question is how many newspapers to have printed? We decided a big goal would be to give out 3000 newspapers. However, we discovered that many people seem to view this newspaper as something of value- they wanted it! So early in the Fair we realized we weren't going to have enough and ordered 2000 more. All 5000 were given out before the 2010 Fair ended!
Of course, with a new project like this the big question is how many newspapers to have printed? We decided a big goal would be to give out 3000 newspapers. However, we discovered that many people seem to view this newspaper as something of value- they wanted it! So early in the Fair we realized we weren't going to have enough and ordered 2000 more. All 5000 were given out before the 2010 Fair ended!
We had a 15ft x 10ft booth with an aisle on two sides. We tried to have 2 people in the booth most of the time and gave out Newspapers from the desk area and the opposite corner. Part of the Newspaper opening article was on the back wall along with a couple of headlines for other articles. We had an area for guest seating and a projector that displayed onto the back wall. We projected slide shows with interesting cartoons, facts and curiosity items. At other times we would show the "Why Christianity" video from Way of the Master ministries. The projection methods didn't seem to attract as much attention to the booth as we thought it would. The Fair is a busy place with lots of distractions. The video just wasn't enough competition, even though the material we showed was very good.
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We also utilized the bottom of our back wall with a full length marker board. The plan here was to have kids write/draw on the wall what "good news" met to them.
The theory was that this would attract families to stop at the booth and the kids could work on the wall while the staff worked with the adults. This turned out to be true and very effective. Fun for the kids and made the staff more open to the parents. Some of the kids were pretty creative and many were also good witnesses of the gospel of Jesus Christ! |
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COG7 Tulsa believes this was a very successful outreach project. It got a lot of church members from several churches involved in getting out of their "comfort zone" and sharing the Good News. In subsequent years we have continued to take on Tulsa State Fair Booth projects but have changed from the somewhat passive "would you like a Good News newspaper?" to a more interactive approach that keys off of the Way of the Master "Good Person" test against the 10 Commandments.
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