Home Outreach Leaders Articles for Outreach & Missions Why Your Church Needs to Host a 5K

Why Your Church Needs to Host a 5K

It’s Worship. 

The church mobilized in mass to sacrifice for the cause of Christ to support other people … if that’s not worship, I don’t know what is.

We often talk about the fact that “worship isn’t just singing on Sunday mornings,” but these events are tangible other-centered living and give us another glimpse of what worship is. 

Actual Cross-Generational Ministry. 

So much of the ministry we do is “age segregated” and I’m not convinced that’s the best for anyone. [More on the benefits of cross-generational ministry.] These events are designed to be available to and work with people across the generations. It’s one of the few times as a church we gather together as a whole, regardless of our age or stage. 

The challenge of programming for the entire age spectrum of our people creates new and wonderful connections that don’t normally happen.

Generates All Kinds of Positive Buzz. 

These events generate a bunch of measurable communication buzz when we do them.

Press Features. Local, regional and national press picked up on this story. This not only makes our people feel great about their church, but creates a “third party validate” for our people as they share the story of what’s going on at their church. Sample coverage: [Local] [Regional] [National]

Sharable Social Content. Part of the reason I was pumped about the “Superhero” theme for this event was I knew it would generate huge shares on our social channels after the event. People love seeing fun and goofy things online. The sight of 2,000 people dressed up in costumes for a good cause generated huge interest! As an example … this one Facebook album generated over 8,000 views alone.

Foyer Buzz. After these events, we see a bump in the attendance of our Sunday morning services. More than just the number of people who show up, there is a tangible excitement at our services as people talk about what happened at the event. New relationships are kindled and that spills over into our normal Sunday environments.

I’d love to hear about your experience with a mass mobilization effort like the Superhero 5k.

What impacts have you seen on your church or community through doing something like this?