5 Ways Large-Scale Community Service Events Help Churches Grow
- Good Thing & God Thing – We think that Jesus calls us to serve the poor; it’s a God thing. Our community sees these events as a good thing to do; people want to make a difference. Rather than squabble over the definition, these events give us a chance to find common ground with our communities and leaders.
- They’re Remarkable – When these events are executed well they become the sort of things that people want to talk about with their friends and family. They invite their close relatives and friends to the community to be a part of it and are excited to share the outcome once it takes place. Friends telling friends about your church is how your church will grow.
- Volunteer Intensive – These events take a lot of people to pull off. I’ve been a part of planning and executing these events when they take literally thousands of people to take place smoothly. The level of vision casting, communication and mobilization that needs to take place for these events to materialize has all kinds of spillover impacts on your church.
- Ruckus Causing – Did you ever notice that throughout the New Testament there always seems to be some sort of ruckus following the move of God? (Water is being turned into wine, pigs are running down the hill in the lake, people going to the river en masse to be baptized, riots breaking out after preaching.) These events create some of that “positive chaos” in your city!
- Total Focus – It takes all the creative energy of your church to implement these events. Churches can become “siloed,” and these experiences are natural ways to break down those silos. The teamwork that’s required to pull this off ends up influencing the rest of your church and drives more growth.
Obviously, we’re called to serve the poor in our communities. The clear evidence of the New Testament is that the church is called to meet the practical needs of the last, least and lost. In a very real way, these large-scale community service events are just living out that mandate at scale. It shouldn’t surprise us then that God seems to be blessing the churches who are engaged in what he’s called us to do from the beginning.
So, what about your church? Could this be the year you get your people out of their seats and into the streets to serve your city?
Help for Church Leaders Wanting to Engage in Mass Community Service
Are you ready to see your church impact more people than it has ever done before? Are you tired of church leadership books that are long on theory but short on practical help? Have you wanted to reach more people in your community but weren’t sure where to start? Are you worried that your church isn’t reaching its full potential? Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems To Drive Growth at Your Church is full of practical insights to help your church reach more people, starting today!
As a part of this book, I pulled together a discussion about how these mass community outreach events are being employed in some of the fastest growing churches in the country. I pulled this from my own experience in leading in a church that regularly does these sorts of experiences as well from my research on 200+ prevailing churches across the country. In this section, we:
- Discuss why the shift in the broader culture away from a traditional Judeo-Christian mindset leads us to this approach as a cornerstone of community impact.
- Take a deep dive into one of the fastest growing churches in the country and look at how they’ve leveraged this tactic for years.
- Provide examples of other churches who are employing this approach with descriptions of what they are doing.
- Give a framework for skeptics of this approach to think about this approach and how it might be implemented in their church.
- Provide a quick start guide that gives an overview of your first steps toward your first event.
- Discuss practical tips that I have learned from seeing lots of these events up close and what you need to do to maximize the “remarkability” factor.
The book launches in February 2018. However, you can read Chapter 1 now by visiting ChurchGrowthFlywheel.com and joining the interest list. You’ll get front-of-the-line access to the launch and a few other freebies along the way.
This article originally appeared here.
