Serve Your Community with Abandon

Doing service alongside members of your community who are not churchgoers is one way of building relationships with them, relationships which foster interpersonal trust and receptivity to the gospel and may eventually yield opportunities for gospel conversations.

Serving your community has the added benefit of improving the public image of your church in the community. It may pique the curiosity of the unchurched and prompt a visit to your church.

To Millenials who are interested in helping others, it conveys the message that your church may be the church for them.

You may want to undertake short-term local service projects at first. If things do not go as you hoped, do not let that discourage you.

The key is "not to put your eggs in one basket" but to undertake a number of local service projects, short-term and long-term. Keep your expectations realistic.

Undertaking long-term local service projects will in the long run establish better connections between your church and your community and will produce greater results - both for your church and for your community.

Take Mark Clifton's advice,"Serve your community with abandon."

Here are a number of ways to serve your community from Outreach Magazine.

Check out Outreach Magazine's "Try This" idea starters.