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Discover seven ways your small church can create the ultimate meal sign-up list for delivery. Strengthen relationships and build a stronger community with meal trains.
Help those who are ill, recovering, grieving, or celebrating by hosting meal delivery sign-ups. It’s a great way to bless those in your church or community who are:
- celebrating the birth of a new baby
- celebrating an adoption
- recovering from surgery
- going through chemo
- recovering from an illness
- getting ready for deployment
- grieving a significant loss
Nothing says, “We love you,” like a meal from your church family. Through the years, our family has been the recipient of many excellent meals as we have grieved great losses, celebrated the birth of our children, and recovered from surgery. Often, we only realize how important this act of kindness can be once we go through it.
The beauty of the meals isn’t just the food or nourishment they bring; it is knowing someone cares for you, has compassion for you, and is praying for you. There is great strength in this.
As the giver of a meal, there is a great reward there too. There is something so powerful about providing comfort through a meal.
If you are wondering if there is an easier way to do this, here are seven different ways you can create the ultimate meal sign-up system for delivery that works best for your church family.
7 Sign-Up Options
1. Meal Sign-Up Sheet
Appoint one person to organize the meals through a tangible (not digital) sign-up sheet. Post it on a bulletin board or in your welcome area, and have people sign up with the date, time, and description of the meal they are providing. Having one sign-up sheet helps eliminate duplicate meals.
A sign-up sheet is only as good as the person who monitors it. Be sure there is someone to monitor the sheet and make calls or send texts to the people who may be able to help and haven’t responded yet.
2. Google Form
If your church family is not intimidated by technology, a Google form is a great option. This form is sent out through e-mail, text, or a QR code. Google Forms allow anyone to complete the form at home and see at any time what everyone is bringing to the family and when it will happen.
In case some people may want to volunteer but need help completing this form, make sure to identify someone they can contact if they need help with the form. Set up your form so people can comment but not delete or alter information.
3. Meal Train
Meal Train is a free online platform. On this platform, having a point person for the meals is a good idea. You need the email addresses of your church members so you can send the link out to them.
4. Care Calendar
Care Calendar is another free online platform. Users can view the main dish someone else brings if they click share. This helps eliminate duplications. A calendar can be set up with only the days meals are needed.
5. Perfect Potluck
Perfect Potluck is a free online platform to help organize meal deliveries. You are signing up for one part of the meal on this platform. Other people are signing up for another part of the meal, like dessert. All the food is delivered on the same day.
6. Take Them A Meal
Take Them A Meal is a free online platform some churches use to help organize meals for families. On this platform, you are signing up to take an entire meal.
7. Freezer Meal Ministry
Another option is setting aside an evening or a Saturday for church friends and volunteers and preparing the main dish for freezer meals together.
3 options to provide ingredients and supplies:
- Church provides the money to purchase the needed supplies.
- People donate money to help purchase items.
- Volunteers sign up to bring specific ingredients and needed supplies.
It can be a fun day to build community while also helping the community. Favorite frozen food items are beef stew, cavatina, meatloaf, Italian meatballs, pulled pork, and pulled chicken. The chicken can be made for soups, noodles, or pot pie.
With any of the options above, it helps to have one point person in charge of the meal sign-up process. This person can publish announcements and the links to these items on a private FB page or email. Using a private online space helps to keep some privacy for those receiving meals.
Extra Tips For Special Circumstances
- If families are out of town or traveling in the summer or winter, still invite and involve them with options for meal gift certificates and contributions.
- For people who cannot provide a meal, understand the importance of reaching out to those who cannot deliver a meal. Keep them involved by calling them and asking if you can buy a package of bread or make something and let the family know it is from them.
- For those who can’t figure out what to fix, give options for allowing people to bring what they want as well as provide suggestions. Be sure to follow food safety methods when preparing and freezing food.
At the end of the day, providing meals is a practical way to meet the physical needs of people in your small church and community. Ultimately, it is a way to be the hands of feet of Jesus as we serve and live out His example. Acts 20:35 reminds us, “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work, we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said; ‘It is more blessed to give to give than to receive.’”
Please let us know what is working for your small church ministry. Comment below! 😀
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Great article! We have a LOT of churches who organize meal trains on giveinkind.com. Our platform is free for as many types of help as are needed, so it’s also used for prayer trains, rides to appointments, childcare, etc.
Awesome! We love tools that save us time!