Mobilizing For Outreach

Last weekend a pastor asked me, "Where I need help is outreach. I know we should do outreach, but how do we get started?"

If your church is more than a few years old it can be a challenge. Although I am retired Army, I like the naval analogy of turning a battleship. Even with a swift turn of the helm, often the mass and momentum keeps the church going in the same direction for awhile.

So here are a few thoughts on how to kick start community outreach:

Check the Compass
Vision drives ministry. Mark 16:15 must be at the foundation of what every church does. If your ministry statement does not include reaching the lost, you may have to revisit the biblical basis of your vision. Our church was founded in 1980 on street witnessing but only 5% of our congregation went to the streets.

In 2000 our pastor wrote a book entitled “Winning Your World” in which he outlined not only confrontational but also servant, relationship and invitational evangelism. His book established the spiritual direction we needed. The vision of outreach is to reach an ever-increasing number of non-Christians in the Twin Cities area and to mobilize more of our congregation to be involved in outreach.

Grab the Helm
Somebody has to lead the charge. It helps but is not absolutely essential if it is the senior pastor. It may be a staff member or a member of the lay leadership team. Someone has to own the prayer, the planning and leadership development; the “make it happen” part of outreach. Several years ago I attended an Steve Sjogren servant evangelism conference in Cincinnati. I was hooked. Servant evangelism is outreach for the average Joe.

Tell the Crew
Use what media you have available: We use our website, publish an outreach newsletter, print bulletin ads, flyers and inserts. Produce a video announcement. We acknowledge outstanding effort by giving the ‘Outie Award’ to staff members who step out of mediocrity and invite a friend or lead an outreach.

Take your Time
You can’t turn a battleship overnight. Don’t fall victim to short-sighted evaluation. Our decision evangelism teams have led 750,000 people to Jesus in 17 years, but our servant, invitational and event evangelism efforts have not even come close to reaching those prodigious numbers. With no staff and few leaders, conducting a monthly SE outreach seemed like a daunting task three years ago. Although it seemed to be a huge undertaking, I didn’t allow discouragement to set in. Often my wife and I were the only ones picking up trash on Saturday. Because we didn’t quit, now as many as 500 attend Operation Outreach. Our church had involved itself in the community but in more of a social service way. When we began to do simple acts of service to show the love of God, not everyone was convinced.

Make Yourself Accountable
I think it important to continually measure your progress. Check to see if you are on course. I remember a friend of mine who said that 'we’re seeking improvement not perfection'. Evaluate how you are implementing your vision. While we can’t always determine our effectiveness as outreachers, we can measure how many people are reaching out. We need to do better at measuring how many we touch.

Ask yourself this question:. "If our church were to disappear tomorrow, would anyone in our community know that we are gone?" The answer will set your course for the future.

Bon voyage!