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These three great outreach ideas are low-cost, easy to prep, and perfect for small churches that want to reach out to your community.
Do you want to host fun events that will engage multiple ages of your church family to get out in the community? Add these 3 tried and tested ideas to your calendar to help your small church connect with your community!
Check Out These Successful Outreach Strategies
We want your small church to be successful in its outreach endeavors. Keeping things simple is the best way to ensure everyone’s participation and confidence level.
Keep Events Simple, Multi-Age, & Low-Prep
- A clear plan: With stated goals, details of what’s needed, and all the dates for planning, promotion, and execution. With the three outreach ideas listed here for you, this part is easy to compile.
- An event that includes multiple ages: An outreach event that engages multiple age groups from your church family is always a plus. This demonstrates to your community you truly work as a “family” unit. Also, it shows the people within your church that they are valued members of the team and that everyone has something to contribute!
- Easy to prep: Your outreach event should be easy to prepare for and not labor-intensive. Readily available materials, reasonably priced, keep your church budget happy. Simple promotional ideas for church engagement and letting your community know what’s happening are also key to happy team leaders and volunteers!
Get Ready, Get Set, Go Outreach!
Free Car Wash
If you have a hose, a few buckets, sponges, old towels, and a car wash solution, you can host a totally free car wash! This event is simply to say “We care about our community.” Keep in mind that you won’t find too many places doing a ‘free’ event with absolutely no strings attached. Be ready to do some convincing, with a smile, of course!!
Hosting at your church location is the best and most “visible” option. If that’s not possible, check with a local gas station or business with good traffic flow and ask to set up there. (You may have to offer to donate to cover the cost of the water, so keep that in mind for your budget.)
Have plenty of signs made up for people to hold up near the road –– be creative!!
Praise In The Park
Do you have a local park where people just love to gather? Bring a group of your church people down to the park to play and sing some music! Double-check with the town to make sure you have permission or don’t need a permit. Simple music, hymns, camp songs, praise tunes, and even some kids’ songs can be lifted together to encourage and cheer those around you. Guitars and other acoustic instruments, even pre-recorded music, work well for this simple time of gathering.
Consider giving free water bottles or freezer pops to the kids! You can make simple song sheets with words.
Remember, this is a top of the Ministry Funnel activity. If you’d like to read about it, check out this link: The Ministry Funnel For Small Churches.
The purpose of this outreach is to connect with people and introduce them to who you are as a church. This is not intended to be a church or preaching service. Simply a casual time of music. It’s all about relational connections!
Make sure to post a sign letting people know the name of your church, location, and worship times.
Saturday Servants
Send a team(s) of your church people into your neighborhood with gloves, trash bags, and grabbers. Clean up the sides of the roads, bus stops, or even a park, depending on your area. This is an excellent family-style event; kids of all ages can help carry a trash bag and pick up paper!
Do some inquiring before your event to see if anyone knows of an elderly person or a schoolyard that needs some clean-up. This could make it really impactful.
Give everyone a church t-shirt so everyone can identify the team. If you don’t have shirts printed, have everyone wear the same color so you can look like a “team.” Consider having small business-sized cards that you can hand out if people inquire as to why you are doing this. Have them printed to say, “Saturday Servants showing God’s love in practical ways.” Include your church information on the opposite side.
Gather a team of volunteers that stay back at the church to prepare lunch for the teams in the neighborhood. This is a great way for older people who may not physically be able to help pick up trash to contribute and be part of the team!
Outreach Events Build Community Within Your Church
These events reach out to your community, but they also help to build community within your small church family! Working side by side with all ages and stages is a great way to deepen ties and make memories as you serve the Lord together! You will make a lasting impact on those in your neighborhood, planting seeds for further connections in the future.
Choose one of these events to reach out to your community and put it on your calendar today. Let us know about it on our Facebook page, Creative Solutions for Small Churches. Take some pictures and give us an overview. We want to celebrate what God is doing in your church!!
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