[Saduyre9de]

Personally, I don't think we can get too comfortable. First of all, this is just an editorial by one guy. It's not a scientific study, rather some personal observations based on a some statistics. That's not to say he is wrong, but I his real purpose was to warn the evangelicals not to rest on their laurels. He simply mixed in a little scare-tactic by mentioning us because nothing is scarier to evangelicals than the word "Catholic" (and Orthodox once they find out that we like saints and ritual too) apart from the phrase "converting to catholicism".

What I worry about is that many converts come to the Faith in very "heady" ways or through marriage. Most converts I meet come to the Church because they read this or that book that delved into theology. A lot of them already knew their own theology very well and came to Orthodoxy because they lead themselves to very deep questions that don't really make sense or seem relevant to the average joe or jane. Like the filioque. There are MANY people (Orthodox and not) who will never be able to appreciate why that matters. They love God, they believe in the Trinity, but try to explain to them the great controversy of the Toledo Council and watch their eyes glaze over. And there's nothing wrong with that, just as there's nothing wrong with it mattering to others.

My point is that if we wish to evangelize to protestants, we need to keep in mind that all of them matter, not just the theologically inclined. We depend on fora, books and websites to passively evagelize, but that is to a quite specific demographic. We need to learn how to reach those who aren't reading theology books or spending their time googling crazy greek words. Normal people whose skills and talents are abounding but whose interests don't lie in theology, history or patristics.

So how do we go about this?

Certainly the first and foremost way to let others know about the Church is by being Orthodox: our actions in love and offering up prayers for the heterdox. Without this, none of it matters anyhow.

But should further action be taken? What about billboards in big cities payed for by donations collected by SCOBA or local parishes just letting people know that we exist, we are Christian and we welcome them to check us out. Or local parishes agreeing to list under the one heading "Orthodox" in the Yellow Pages. Is there anything unOrthodox about any of this? Does the billboard idea (as an example only) make things kitchy? I don't think so on the surface, but "advertising" and things like these are kind of... not things we tend to do.

Joshua