PUBLIC OUTREACH STRATEGY FOR FIRST PARISH (2008-09)

• Continue to define and establish a recognizable public identity (our "brand") through the CONSISTENT use of the slogans and images we have chosen to identify ourselves with: the image of our historic Meeting House, "A Warm & Welcoming Place in the Heart of the City," and "Portland's Original Faith Community (gathered in 1674)"

• Continue to create a top-notch Sunday Morning Worship, Education and Fellowship experience.

• Develop and maintain a relatively simple, straight-forward, content-rich and easy-to-navigate website. "Easy to Navigate" means it should be as intuitive to read as a daily newspaper. "Content Rich" means it should invite readers to lose track of time as they follow interesting link after link exploring our virtual community in depth.

• Use various other inexpensive, “guerilla marketing” techniques to increase our familiarity, and to entice potential visitors to the web. As we do currently, we should continue to promote BOTH our main Sunday AM worship services, as well as concerts and other community events, and the public use of the Meetinghouse for weddings, funerals, and rites of passage.

• Our Public Outreach emphasis this year is two-fold. The general theme is to “Celebrate the Season at First Parish Church” (also “Join us round the Heart(h)fire at First Parish Church” and “Join Us for the Holidays at First Parish Church”), a season which begins with the Cider and Cornbread communion on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and concludes with the Burning Ritual on the Sunday after New Year. But we also want to promote our alternative EvenTide services (“twice the music, half the talk, same great message”) and help them establish a strong identity as well.

• Finally, we need to remember that everything we say in Church, everything we post to the web, everything we publish in the newsletter and bulletin or even say publicly to one another in the coffee hour is also potentially being heard and interpreted by someone brand new to our church, who has very little context for interpreting those remarks, is naturally a little inclined to be skeptical and suspicious of organized religion, and is trying to make up their mind about whether they really fit in here. So in all our communication with one another and the wider world, lets remember ALWAYS to focus on what the church can do for Newcomers, rather than what we expect Newcomers to do for us. Let’s remember to stay away from jargon, acronyms, and inside jokes; and let’s especially try to avoid those “cringe-worthy moments” which make the minister want to curl up in his wheelchair and shrink away to invisibility.