Outreach Brainstorming

Sometimes its hard to flex the brain when it's so hot out, but I'm asking you, our Church, to come up with ideas for outreach.

The Church is the only organization that doesn't exist for itself.... yet when you follow the money, time, and talent, that's rarely the reality.  At Mission Foursquare Church we currently spend approximately 25% of our budget, time, and talent on reaching out (i.e. missions, youth centre, benevolence, subsidy to non-profit groups and other churches in the use of our facility).  The rest of our resources is currently spent on ourselves (facility, administration, and internal programs).  Our goal is to get our outreach giving to 50% of our resources (time, talent, and money).  We believe that a healthy Church grows and bears fruit.  For that to happen we need people who are healthy and growing.  If we ensure that we are healthy and growing then collectively we'll begin to see more fruit!

It's no coincidence that we are seeing the most fruit come from our youth ministry and small groups.  We have been purposeful in investing in these ministries and these ministries have been reaching out and people are coming to know Christ!  We've all been a part of that and we can celebrate together!

We want to see more fruit!  There are so many people in our community that do not know Jesus and we'd like to work together to change that.  So this summer I am asking our Church to come up with ideas to either improve what we do or create new ways of doing things.

There are some parameters to our ideas:

• Our ideas need to meet a need that is related to the mission of the Church  (i.e. we will not focus on a developing a pill that cures baldness). We exist to help people come to know Christ, grow in Christ, and then sow (serve/give) Christ to the World.
• If our idea already exists then we'll partner with whoever is already doing it (no need to reinvent the wheel) or franchise it (i.e. we will not create our own foodbank and compete against others, but if there is a need for one in our area then we'll add on to the current system).  We may do more sending of people and money to other organizations then the creating of our own programs.
• Not all ideas will be implemented.  Timing and fit will have a lot to do with the implementation of our ideas.  A filter of God's guidance, ministry leader's experience, and timing will be applied to all ideas.

Here are some ideas that have come in so far that might help you think towards more and better ideas:

• Rent booths at festivals at Heritage Park where we can have a fun game for kids and an invite to a fun family event.
• Support the annual Soap Box derby with financial and volunteer support.  Volunteers could wear cool t-shirts.
• Start a walking and/or hiking club.
• Start a Celebrate Recovery group.
• Rent retail space at the new development across the street and open up a coffee shop.  The shop could be a connection point to meet our neighbours.  Proceeds could go to world relief, social justice causes, or missions trips.
• Hire a professional counsellor and offer free marriage counselling.
• Start an alternative service on a different day like we used to for people that work on Sundays or hate traditional religious activities.

As you can see the ideas vary... and that's a good thing!  So start scratching your head, open your eyes and look for needs in our community.  Have fun dreaming!