Christ­mas Edition

* Stuffed stockings. Take a cue from Open Air Min­istries Philadel­phi­a and part­ner with oth­er local church­es to dis­trib­ute over­flow­ing stock­ings to low-income fam­i­lies in your area.

Each year, Open Air invites ele­men­tary stu­dents the church nor­mal­ly reaches—as well as oth­er fam­i­lies in near­by low-income neighborhoods—to attend Christ­mas stock­ing outreach.

* Christ­mas tree giveaways. Work with a local Christ­mas tree lot and school to buy and deliv­er free Christ­mas trees. Ask the school and your church to rec­om­mend fam­i­lies to receive the trees and a dec­o­ra­tion box, includ­ing lights, orna­ments and a tree topper.

* Glob­al Christmas. Defeat the Christ­mas spir­it of con­sumerism and host a gift fair, fea­tur­ing presents you can give to var­i­ous fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties in need—locally and abroad. Every Christmas, The Shore­line Church of San Clemente, Calif., hosts “Shops at the Shoreline,” fea­tur­ing a shop­ping cat­a­log and booths from min­istries around the world.

The church coor­di­nates efforts with glob­al min­istries to pre­pare the cat­a­log, ask­ing how they can part­ner with them for the hol­i­day sea­son. More than 20 min­istries were rep­re­sent­ed in 2008. Shop­pers can pur­chase every­thing from a cow for a fam­i­ly in a Third World coun­try to gifts for local Birth Choice centers.

Each year, The Shore­line rais­es sev­er­al thou­sand dol­lars to sup­port glob­al ministries.

* Christ­mas camp. Offer free child­care to your com­mu­ni­ty on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day nights—prime times for com­pa­ny Christ­mas par­ties and hol­i­day shop­ping. Orga­nize a crafts sta­tion where chil­dren can cre­ate home­made gifts for their fam­i­lies and friends.

* The Joy of Christmas. Help fam­i­lies stretch their hol­i­day dol­lars by pro­vid­ing food bas­kets and children’s gifts. For 14 years, St. John’s Epis­co­pal of Wake For­est, N.C., has served fam­i­lies in need with its Joy of Christ­mas packages.

In Sep­tem­ber, the church pro­vides school guid­ance coun­selors reg­is­tra­tion forms to dis­trib­ute to fam­i­lies per­ceived to be in need. The fam­i­lies are encour­aged to com­plete the forms and return them to the church. St. John’s mem­bers and guests then coor­di­nate to pro­vide and deliv­er Christ­mas gifts for each child in the fam­i­ly, a hol­i­day meal, gro­cery store gift cards and pantry items.

“Some of these fam­i­lies have a tough time mak­ing ends meet or are unable to pur­chase gifts for all their children,” says coor­di­na­tor Car­olyn Stok­las. “Through this min­istry, fam­i­lies who would oth­er­wise be stretched with hard­ships dur­ing Christ­mas find bless­ings instead.”

* Fido-sitting. Encour­age peo­ple in your church to offer free pet- and house-sit­ting ser­vices to their trav­el­ing neighbors.

* Free firewood. Help cut util­i­ty costs and secure per­mis­sion to give away cords of fire­wood out­side local gro­cery and home stores, as well as Christ­mas tree lots.

*  Pack­ages for the troops. Con­tact the Unit­ed Ser­vice Orga­ni­za­tion­s to send pack­ages to troops serv­ing over­seas. Fill each pack­age with neces­si­ties and com­forts from home: cards and let­ters of thanks, phone cards and a Bible.

 

Source: Out­reach Mag­a­zine. Nov. 22, 2015.

 

Who are mis­sion-mind­ed peo­ple? How do they see the world? While they could be found in your church, place of work or coach­ing Lit­tle League, what do mis­sion-mind­ed peo­ple do differently?

Inter­na­tion­al Mis­sion Board mis­sion­ar­ies from around the world helped com­pile a list of 13 things that make up a mis­sion-mind­ed person:

1. They want to meet some­one who does not fol­low Jesus Christ. Mis­sion-mind­ed peo­ple fol­low Jesus’ plan in Luke 10 to go work “His har­vest.” They active­ly seek out non-believ­ers for con­ver­sa­tions and friendship.

2. They con­tin­u­al­ly look for cre­ative ways to share the Gospel. Mis­sion-mind­ed peo­ple find inten­tion­al ways to share so that peo­ple under­stand. It is not a “canned pre­sen­ta­tion” but rel­a­tive to that person/group. They do the abnor­mal, irra­tional, counter-intu­itive, and take risks all in an effort to share Christ.

3. They have a dif­fer­ent world­view. They think more about the world, cul­ture and lan­guages than they do about the tiny place where they live. They under­stand that the Gospel is not just for them but for all peo­ple. They are com­mit­ted to get­ting it to the rest of the world.

4. They hear the voice of God and are obe­di­ent. Mis­sion-mind­ed peo­ple hear the voice of God and obey when He tells them to go across the street, to anoth­er town, state or coun­try to share about His redeem­ing love.

5. They pray a lot! Pray­ing is a direct link to God. They believe that God will do greater things than we can ever imag­ine; and they pray for it to happen.

6. They make dis­ci­ples. They con­stant­ly ask them­selves if what they are doing will result in dis­ci­ples. If the strat­e­gy is only for peo­ple to hear, then the Gospel will not spread. Mis­sion-mind­ed peo­ple know the impor­tance of discipleship.

7. They meet human needs while shar­ing the Gospel. Mis­sion-mind­ed peo­ple believe it does­n’t mat­ter how many wells a per­son digs or how many orphans they feed if they are not fol­low­ing Christ’s man­date to take the Gospel to those who have not heard. They con­tend that if a per­son is not shar­ing Jesus, they are wast­ing time and money.

8. They believe that being mis­sion-mind­ed is not a “task.” It’s a lifestyle. They live out mis­sions in their every­day life. From the moment they wake up until they go to bed, they impact the world around them.

9. They are rela­tion­al. They are will­ing to leave their own “bub­ble” to make rela­tion­ships with those con­sid­ered the “least of these.” They have an aware­ness of the peo­ple around them and look for ways to build a rela­tion­ship that will lead to shar­ing Christ and discipleship.

10. They go! It does­n’t mat­ter where God tells them to go — Tim­buk­tu or Kala­ma­zoo — they grow where God plants them. And, they are will­ing to move on when He says, “Go!”

11. They see peo­ple with a future. When they look at an unreached peo­ple group, they see poten­tial “broth­ers and sis­ters” in Christ. They see that eter­ni­ty and joy are avail­able for every­one and are excit­ed to share it.

12. They send! They know that we are respon­si­ble for ALL peo­ple groups hear­ing the Gospel. They fol­low the exam­ple from the book of Acts to “send” out oth­er mis­sion-mind­ed peo­ple. They sup­port them in any way possible.

13. They under­stand “the task” is not done. Mis­sion-mind­ed peo­ple know that once they have reached their fam­i­ly and friends with Christ, they are not done. There are still bil­lions in the world that have not pro­claimed Jesus’ name.

Susie Rain is a mis­sion­ary writer for the IMB. She lives in South­east Asia and works with an unreached peo­ple group and we appre­ci­ate the above arti­cle she has shared. Fol­low Susie Rain on Face­book or Twitter.

 

Out­reach in the Workplace

Many times it’s dif­fi­cult to find prac­ti­cal ways to be a bless­ing in your work­place. Recent­ly, Josh Reeves post­ed some very prac­ti­cal ideas for bless­ing oth­ers in the workplace:

1. Instead of eat­ing lunch alone, inten­tion­al­ly eat with oth­er co-work­ers and learn their story.

2. Get to work ear­ly so you can spend some time pray­ing for your co-work­ers and the day ahead.

3. Make it a dai­ly pri­or­i­ty to speak or write encour­age­ment when some­one does good work.

4. Bring extra snacks when you make your lunch to give away to others.

5. Bring break­fast (donuts, bur­ri­tos, cere­al, etc.) once a month for every­one in your department.

6. Orga­nize a running/walking group in the before or after work.

7. Have your mis­sion­al community/small group (Sun­day School Class) bring lunch to your work­place once a month.

8. Make a list of your co-work­ers birth­days and find a way to bless every­one on their birthday.

9. Make every effort to avoid gos­sip in the office. Be a voice of thanks­giv­ing not complaining.

10. Offer to throw a show­er for a co-work­er who is hav­ing a baby.

11. Start a reg­u­lar lunch out with co-work­ers (don’t be selec­tive on the invites).

12. Orga­nize a weekly/monthly pot luck to make lunch a bit more exciting.

13. Ask some­one who oth­ers typ­i­cal­ly ignore if you can grab them a soda/coffee while you’re out.

14. Be the first per­son to greet and wel­come new people.

15. Make every effort to know the names of co-work­ers and clients along with their families.

16. Vis­it cowork­ers when they are in the hospital.

17. Bring sodas or work appro­pri­ate drinks to keep in your break room for cowork­ers to enjoy. Know what your co-work­ers like.

18. Go out of your way to talk to your jan­i­tors and clean­ing peo­ple who most peo­ple overlook.

19. Find out your co-work­ers favorite music and make a playlist that includes as much as you can (if suit­able for work).

20. Invite your co-work­ers in to the ser­vice projects you are already involved in.

21. Start/join a city league team with your co-workers.

22. Orga­nize a week­ly co-work­ing group for local entre­pre­neurs at a local cof­fee shop.

23. Start a small busi­ness that will bless your com­mu­ni­ty and cre­ate space for mission.

24. Work hard to rec­on­cile co-work­ers who are fight­ing with one another.

25. Keep small can­dy, gum, or lit­tle snacks around to offer to oth­ers dur­ing a long day.

26. Lead the charge in orga­niz­ing oth­ers to help co-work­ers in need.

Mis­sion­al Tip: Pick one of these ideas and act on it this week. Let us know in the com­ments how it went!

Find­ing & Keep­ing the NEXT GENERATION (Ideas to help us reach the younger gen­er­a­tion for Jesus)
After-school care
In this min­istry of First Bap­tist Church, Gray, Geor­gia, stu­dents are sep­a­rat­ed by age to bet­ter facil­i­tate their needs. Each day includes home­work time, a snack, and out­door and indoor play. Occa­sion­al­ly the group takes field trips, and orga­niz­ers include a Bible study every week. This min­istry serves church mem­bers but also reach­es into the com­mu­ni­ty to fam­i­lies who need help. “There are sev­er­al fam­i­lies who are just des­per­ate for after-school care for their kids because of finan­cial hard­ship and jobs,” says After-School Min­istry Direc­tor Shirley Bil­lue. “They are real­ly so thank­ful for this pro­gram. For more infor­ma­tion please go to FirstBaptistGray.com/Shirley.htm

Out of the Box
OPERATION LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Jim Bur­nett, (Pas­tor Wil­low Pointe Church of Hat­ties­burg, Mis­sis­sip­pi) tells the sto­ry of how their church pur­chased over 400 mini spi­ral 60 watt light bulbs and one by one placed them in plas­tic bags with the church’s logo on the out­side and an infor­ma­tion­al sheet on the inside. Attached to the bulb was a card that said the following:

Jesus is the Light of the World. Just as this bulb will illu­mi­nate the dark areas of your home, Jesus brings light and under­stand­ing to life. John 8:12-When Jesus spoke again to the peo­ple, he said, “I am the light of the world. Who­ev­er fol­lows me will nev­er walk in dark­ness, but will have the light of life.”
On the back it said:
Jesus Saves. This bulb has the poten­tial to save you $46 a year in ener­gy cost. Jesus promis­es to save you from your sin and God’s judg­ment. Romans 6:23 (writ­ten out)
Jesus Offers Eter­nal Life. This bulb has a life expectan­cy of none years or 10,000 hours. Jesus desires to give you eter­nal life which nev­er ends. 1 John 5:13 (writ­ten out)

As these were dis­trib­uted in pairs of two a two ques­tion sur­vey was conducted.

1. Are you cur­rent­ly involved in a local church?
2. Do you have any spe­cif­ic needs in your life for which we can pray with you?

The results were excit­ing with 23 prospec­tive fam­i­lies locat­ed who are now being pray­ing for and contacted.
I encour­age you to give this cre­ative and prac­ti­cal out­reach effort a try.

Find­ing & Keep­ing the NEXT GENERATION (Ideas to help us reach the younger gen­er­a­tion for Jesus)
Ideas Tar­get­ed to Sports Teams (adapt­ed from Ath­letes in Action)

High School Sports Par­ty ‑Dec­o­rate one of your large church rooms with a sports theme and invite high school stu­dents in for a par­ty after home games. Offer them free food (piz­za and snacks), music (a Con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian Band), and games (Pin­ball, Ping Pong, Foos­ball, and video games).

Out of the Box

• Steaks and Salmon for Firefighters

Since 9/11 the gen­er­al pub­lic has been aware of the tremen­dous job that they do for us day in and day out. Show them a lit­tle kind­ness by pro­vid­ing some steaks or salmon to grill. Let them know in advance that you are com­ing so they can have the grill fired up.

• Hand Out Cof­fee Pack­ets for Time Change Week­end or Anytime!

Wake Up and Smell the Pura Vida Cof­fee! A church in Grand Rapids, Michi­gan had a great idea-give out pre-pack­aged cof­fee grounds to help peo­ple get through the time change week­end. They con­tact­ed Pura Vida Cof­fee for indi­vid­ual cof­fee pack­ets that any church can order for give-away in your community.

• Pura Vida Cof­fee 2 oz. cof­fee pack­et give-aways The bags come in quan­ti­ties of 21 per box. If you want to add your own cus­tom labels, Avery Diskette Labels are 2 3/4 square and should work well (Avery Prod­uct #08196). For cof­fee pric­ing and blend avail­abil­i­ty, con­tact Paul at paul@puravidacoffee.com, or vis­it the web site at www.puravidacoffee.com.
• Blood Pres­sure Screening

The entry­way of your apart­ment build­ing or a gro­cery store is an ide­al place for this out­reach. Such screen­ings are com­mon these days, so your request won’t sound odd. While check­ing out their pres­sure, explain your rea­son for being there that day.

• Free Bird Feed­ers and Refills to Con­va­les­cent Home Res­i­dents Most out­reach­es to those in con­va­les­cent homes will touch their extend­ed fam­i­ly as well. Pro­vide an acrylic bird feed­er – the kind with suc­tion cups that stick right to the win­dow. Return occa­sion­al­ly to refill the bird feed and check in on your adopt­ed elder­ly friend.
• Christ­mas Tree Giveaways

A few days before Christ­mas, lot own­ers are will­ing to give the trees away. With pick­up trucks, deliv­er them to finan­cial­ly-stretched sin­gle par­ent families.

• Christ­mas Tree Collection

Every­one needs to get rid of his or her tree. A few days after Christ­mas, offer to haul them away for the neighborhood.

• Bait at Local Fish­ing Spots

This brings new mean­ing to the verse from Psalm 51, “I am a worm and not a man.” Those who fish with live bait need worms, grubs, gold­fish, min­nows, or what­ev­er. Pur­chase these crit­ters in large quan­ti­ties from a bait shop, go to the lakes, and give them away.

OUT OF THE BOX (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)

• Encour­age Sun­day School Class­es or small groups to meet at loca­tions in the com­mu­ni­ty away from the church, like McDonald’s or oth­er restau­rants. Ask per­mis­sion to post signs about the gath­er­ings and ask folks near your table to join you. If your church uses an open enroll­ment phi­los­o­phy regard­ing Sun­day School/Bible Study (and I hope it does) ask those attend­ing if you could enroll them in Sun­day School/Bible study.
• Intro­duce vis­i­tors to your staff and min­istries in a relaxed set­ting by pro­vid­ing a free casu­al lunch, din­ner or fel­low­ship. This could be done at the church, a home, or in a near­by restaurant.
• Nev­er mis­take young peo­ple as “the future of the church.” They are the church and we should inte­grate them into the life of the church now. With that in mind, con­sid­er hav­ing at least one young per­son rep­re­sent­ed in some form of church leadership.
• Using tech­nol­o­gy to reach teens is dirt cheap when you com­pare it to the cost of a build­ing. It takes more time than mon­ey and a will­ing­ness to apply what you’ve learned about the tools they are using to com­mu­ni­cate. There­fore, engage rela­tion­al­ly in online envi­ron­ments where youth hang out. We don’t have to com­pete with Face­book, MySpace, Twit­ter, but we should use them to con­nect with teens. Any­where they are, we should be too.

OUT OF THE BOX (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)

A church mem­ber sug­gest­ed the church cre­ate a face­book page.  I was not con­vinced the idea would be ben­e­fi­cial but had a col­lege stu­dent who is a mem­ber of Friend­ship to cre­ate the page with hopes it would allow the church to share Jesus with others. We have had the face­book page for only two weeks now and have cre­at­ed con­tacts with near­ly 50 people.  Many prayer requests have been sub­mit­ted via the site and it has giv­en me an oppor­tu­ni­ty to “chat” with not only church mem­bers but also com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who I do not get to talk to very often.  I have been aston­ished by the response to the face­book site.  There have been some prob­lems get­ting the site to allow us to name the page Friend­ship Bap­tist Church and we cur­rent­ly are using the name “Bap­tist Church”.  Look us up on the site Face­book and let me know what you think.  I would encour­age oth­er church­es to think out­side the box and look for new ways to ful­fill the great com­mis­sion giv­en to us by Jesus.
 Robert Rosier (Pas­tor of Friend­ship Baptist)

 

OUT OF THE BOX @ EASTER (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)

• Hold and after-ser­vice bar­be­cue or a pre-ser­vice break­fast. Have every­one who attends bring a canned food item for the local food bank.
• Enlist a pho­tog­ra­ph­er to take free fam­i­ly pho­tos as peo­ple arrive at your com­mu­ni­ty’s East­er egg hunt and send the pic­tures and infor­ma­tion about your church to fam­i­lies via email.
• Host finan­cial man­age­ment sem­i­nars cov­er­ing get­ting out of debt, retire­ment plan­ning, sav­ing for col­lege and thriv­ing as a sin­gle-income family.
• Orga­nize a job-share and com­put­er train­ing con­fer­ence in your church, pro­vid­ing train­ing in resume writ­ing, cloth­ing for job inter­views, inter­view­ing skills, phone skills and basic com­put­er skills.

What­ev­er you do make sure folks know you are pro­vid­ing this ser­vice because Jesus loves them. And final­ly, PUBLICIZE, PUBLICIZE, PUBLICIZE!!!!!!

 

OUT OF THE BOX Christ­mas Ideas (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)

• Give away rolls of tape for gift wrap­ping out­side the post office, or a local busi­ness. (Get per­mis­sion first!)
• Invite your com­mu­ni­ty to an evening of Christ­mas movies for the fam­i­ly on a big screen, com­plete with home­made Christ­mas snacks.
• Pro­vide child­care at the church (free of charge) so par­ents can go Christ­mas shop­ping. Be sure to invite the community.
• Send car­ol­ers into the com­mu­ni­ty and be sure to hand out infor­ma­tion about your church’s Christ­mas events.
• Chal­lenge mem­bers to make a dozen home­made cook­ies at the begin­ning of Decem­ber to hand out to neigh­bors and area busi­ness­es with invi­ta­tions to church.
• Offer to wrap Christ­mas gifts (free of charge) at one of the local busi­ness. Be sure to have a sign with your church name list­ed as well as infor­ma­tion about your church available.
• Have your instru­men­tal­ists play Christ­mas car­ols at the entrance to one of the local busi­ness­es. Make sure they have pre­pared ade­quate­ly and remem­ber to ask per­mis­sion of the man­ag­er ahead of time.
• Have a team of rak­ers rake leaves in a local neigh­bor­hood. Be sure you tell the home own­er this was done because you love Jesus and Jesus loves them.
• Pass out free bags of pop­corn to cus­tomers leav­ing a local video rental store. Cus­tomize bags with the church’s logo, address and ser­vice times.

 

OUT OF THE BOX (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)
Host A Rodeo -Host a bike rodeo to equip young rid­ers with the best lessons for sharp­en­ing their bike safe­ty as well as to reach out to the com­mu­ni­ty. Here’s how: 

• Hold the event at the church park­ing lot or playground.
• Cre­ate a “street” with chalk or spray paint lines (if on grass) that kids can ride around and mini traf­fic signs to teach the rules of the road-stop­ping, swerv­ing, brak­ing and more.
• Help kids mas­ter bal­ance in a snail race to be the last to cross the fin­ish line.
• Test bike con­trol by hav­ing rid­ers weave around cones set in a slalom pattern.
• Empha­size the impor­tance of hel­mets with a hel­met fit­ting station.
• Teach hand sig­nals and enforce traf­fic laws.
• Get kids inter­est­ed in bike main­te­nance with an “inspec­tion sta­tion” where bike mechan­ics check seat height, brakes, tire pres­sure, chains and more.
• Reward par­tic­i­pants’ hard work by hand­ing out certificates.
• Have prayer and a short devo­tion and hand out gospel tracts (designed for chil­dren) and pos­si­ble new testaments.

 

OUT OF THE BOX (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)
Con­sid­er tak­ing a team from your church to min­is­ter in South­west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia for a week. This one Asso­ci­a­tion has 9 coun­ties (one with no South­ern Bap­tist Church­es), 3 mil­lion peo­ple, 2 mil­lion unchurched, and 71 SBC Church­es. Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing: 

• 1 SBC church for every 2,777 peo­ple in Georgia
• 1 SBC church for every 61,225 peo­ple in SWPA
• 1 SBC church for every 91,000 peo­ple in Metro Pitts­burgh area
• 3600 church­es in the Geor­gia Bap­tist Convention
• 385 church­es in the Bap­tist Con­ven­tion of Pennsylvania

Let’s help our broth­ers and sis­ters make it very dif­fi­cult to go tell hell from South­west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia. For a list of needs and mis­sion trip oppor­tu­ni­ties, please give us a call at DBA or email me at rsmithdba@windstream.net.

 

OUT OF THE BOX (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)
God’s Kidz Music Camp
Con­sid­er hav­ing a fun, sum­mer music camp for the chil­dren in your coun­ty and sur­round­ing area. Church­es hav­ing done this have seen many con­ver­sions, reach­ing fam­i­lies who nor­mal­ly would not attend any church. The one week, M‑F sched­ule is as follows:
9 a.m.   ‑Sil­ly (fun) songs with the children
9:10     ‑Begin work­ing on the musi­cal you will present on Sun­day evening
10:00   ‑Snack Break and Bathroom
10:20   ‑Small groups and dra­ma rehearsal
11:00   ‑Large group rehearsal
12:00   ‑Lunch (sack lunch pro­vid­ed by each family)
12:30   ‑Leave for after­noon activ­i­ties such as bowl­ing, skat­ing, nature pre­serve, parks…
3:00     ‑Return to church and par­ents pick up children

This is a won­der­ful out­reach event that your com­mu­ni­ty will embrace and great­ly sup­port. The goal is to have the chil­dren per­form a musi­cal dra­ma on Sun­day evening with only one week’s rehearsal. It sounds crazy but I know it works!

For more infor­ma­tion please call our office at 912–583-2713.

OUT OF THE BOX (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)
Min­is­ter­ing at the Poles
It’s elec­tion time and many church­es have found ways to min­is­ter at elec­tion sites. If your church is a polling place or is near one you might con­sid­er the following:

1. Pro­vide free cof­fee to vot­ers from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
2. Offer to help with park­ing issues by direct­ing traffic.
3. Have men and women avail­able to escort folks into the build­ing with umbrel­las if it begins to rain.
4. Pro­vide break­fast, (and/or) lunch, (and/or) sup­per for poll work­ers at no cost.

If you do any or all of these you will be sur­prised how it will bless the com­mu­ni­ty. Remem­ber, this is not a time where you tell folks who to vote for. It is how­ev­er, a time to show kind­ness in the name of Jesus!

 

OUT OF THE BOX (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)
Plant A Church
I pray for the day when every church in the Daniell Bap­tist Asso­ci­a­tion is involved in church plant­i­ng. Below are some ways church­es of every size can be involved in church planting:

1. Church Plant­i­ng Activ­i­ties -Help a new church with prayer walk­ing, back­yard Bible clubs, evan­ge­lis­tic sur­veys, or Scrip­ture distribution.
2. Spon­sor or Co-spon­sor -Come along­side a new church with finances, prayer, and friendship.
3. Core Group ‑You could send mem­bers out from your own con­gre­ga­tion to help plant a church.
It’s going to take all kinds of church­es to reach our area for Jesus. New church­es come from the Lord and they come from you, your church, and your Acts 1:8 part­ners. Be a part of help­ing to start a church. You can do it and DBA can help.

 

OUT OF THE BOX (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)
An out­reach event an indi­vid­ual might use is a Christ­mas Tea giv­en for women and girls.  This can be done more sim­ply than you might imag­ine, and because so many peo­ple are open to friend­ship and shar­ing the faith at this time of year, it is even pos­si­ble to present a non-churchy Gospel pre­sen­ta­tion in FIVE min­utes if your invi­ta­tion states that some­one may be shar­ing a few inspir­ing thoughts about the season.  Guests come pre­pared to share a favorite Christ­mas mem­o­ry. Ask few neigh­bors to help you and then fol­low up with an invite to your church’s Christ­mas Eve ser­vice. For neigh­bors who miss the tea, take a lit­tle plate of good­ies with your name and phone num­ber and look for future oppor­tu­ni­ties to impact them.

It is so fun to see God work a mir­a­cle in a neighborhood.  All he needs is one per­son who will seek His strat­e­gy and do His bid­ding, what­ev­er sim­ple thing it is.  He will cov­er any mis­takes and pour out joy unspeak­able, so make this Christ­mas count.  It is a strate­gic one!  

 

OUT OF THE BOX (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)

Race to Win
Sun­day School Growth Campaign
As you begin the new upcom­ing Sun­day School year you might con­sid­er a Race to Win high atten­dance day. Ask class­es to set a numer­i­cal goal for their class and then, once you have added those num­bers togeth­er you have your high atten­dance goal for the entire Sun­day School. Once you have the goal set and the date estab­lished, dec­o­rate the class­rooms, foy­er, and Wor­ship Cen­ter four weeks pri­or to the high atten­dance day (Vic­to­ry Sun­day).
Dec­o­rate the rooms, foy­er, and sanc­tu­ary with any­thing rac­ing ori­ent­ed. I know of one church who even put a sports car on the plat­form. Oth­er ideas include putting Go-carts in the foy­er and wor­ship cen­ter. If you need rac­ing ideas go to http://www.orientaltrading.com/.

What­ev­er you do, encour­age the folks to bring the lost. You might even want to have a pinewood der­by race for the chil­dren on the Sat­ur­day pri­or. Ser­mon ideas include: The Win­ners Cir­cle, Rac­ing to Win, and Are you in the Race?

For more ideas on Rac­ing to Win please give Rob­by a call at the DBA office.

 

Party-driven Sunday School growth

• You can dou­ble your class in two years or less. It only takes 40% growth, or an aver­age class going from 10 to 14 in a year to dou­ble in two years or less. Yet, the results are amaz­ing. A group that dou­bles every eigh­teen months can reach a thou­sand peo­ple in ten years. That is a fact of sim­ple math. Fact is, there is a world-wide move­ment of God by which this is happening.
• Par­ties are one of the best ways I know to grow a class. Here is the for­mu­la: invite every mem­ber and every prospect to every fel­low­ship every month.

A Sun­day School leader had a din­ner and a movie at their house last Fri­day night. It was great. They had a Pot-luck din­ner at 7:00, and a movie to fol­low. Curi­ous thing, they did­n’t have any new peo­ple show up at the par­ty, but they had their all time high atten­dance on Sun­day. I have seen it hap­pen more times than I can count.

Have you tried it? Why not fol­low the scrip­tures that say:

• Get into the habit of invit­ing guests home for din­ner. Romans 12:13 [Liv­ing]
• Offer hos­pi­tal­i­ty to one anoth­er with­out grum­bling. 1 Peter 4:9 [NIV]

David Fran­cis, leader of Sun­day School for Life­way endors­es the par­ty dri­ven approach. For more details link to the full pdf file at: www.lifeway.com/sundayschool

 

OUT OF THE BOX (Ideas to help church­es reach peo­ple for Jesus)
Free Hot Choco­late -Cocoa pro­vides first con­tact in Fri­day evening evangelism.
by Charles R. Hugh­esMichael and C.J. respond pos­i­tive­ly while stand­ing in the bap­tis­tery. “Are you trust­ing Jesus Christ alone for eter­nal life?” Both young men say yes. We first met them at the Laun­dro­mat one block from the church.

 

Ours is the tini­est church in town, 75 seats in the audi­to­ri­um and the small house next door is our office and edu­ca­tion space. We faith­ful­ly sup­port mis­sions around the world, but we won­dered how our church could reach those in our com­mu­ni­ty who need Christ. That’s when we start­ed giv­ing away free hot chocolate.

Every Fri­day night start­ing at 5:30, we walk through our neigh­bor­hood, talk­ing with the peo­ple we meet and offer­ing cups of cocoa. (We call it FEET, Fri­day Evening Evan­ge­lism Training.)

A fresh­man min­is­te­r­i­al stu­dent leads out, tak­ing a few young peo­ple with him. Those we meet on the streets, we ask to take an opin­ion survey.

• In your opin­ion, as we seek to build min­istry in this neigh­bor­hood, should we focus on chil­dren, youth, adults, or seniors?
• In your opin­ion, why do some in our com­mu­ni­ty not attend church?
• In your opin­ion, what does it take for one to enter heaven?
• May I share with you how I came to know for cer­tain if I were to die I would go to heaven?

Using a brochure, we share a five-point gospel pre­sen­ta­tion based on the acros­tic TRUTH. We also invite them to church and ask if we may send a post­card after our talk. That starts sev­er­al fol­low-up con­tacts. Fol­low-up is the key.

C.J. and Michael came to church wear­ing rings in their ears, noses, eye­brows, lips, and tongues. They stayed after the ser­vice to talk with Ricky, who first offered them free hot choco­late, and with Wayne, a dry­wall con­trac­tor. While church mem­bers prayed in anoth­er room, C.J. and Michael asked ques­tions and lat­er pro­fessed their faith in Christ. Soon they were baptized.

Fri­day night is not usu­al­ly the time to plan recur­ring min­istry, but it works in our com­mu­ni­ty. Our church has grown from 30 to 40, includ­ing young men like C.J. and Michael, who have joined in shar­ing cocoa and the gospel.