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If you’re looking for effective outreach ideas for your small church, join me as I talk with Ebonie Mukasa of Experience Church International in Miami, Florida.
While some might define effective outreach as bringing people into your local church, Ebonie defines effective outreach as taking the church out to the world.
She shares how teaching outreach as a lifestyle in your small church will change the people in your congregation from the inside out, erupting with kindness and living out the character of Christ.
Listen in to hear:
- Why genuine outreach is always personal
- The importance of giving without expecting something in return
- How to liberate yourself to serve freely and trust God with the results
Links Mentioned:
Get a FREE ticket to A Small Church Christmas Conference >> http://smallchurchsummits.com/
Connect with Ebonie Mukasa:
https://www.experiencechurchintl.org/
https://www.eboniemukasa.com/
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090: Effective Outreach: Moving From Programs & Events To Outreach As A Lifestyle | with Ebonie Mukasa
Laurie Graham 0:01
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast.
Laurie Graham 0:15
Hey, hey! Welcome back to the Small Church Ministry Podcast. I get to do one of my favorite things again today, which is introducing you to someone that I love. I met Ebonie through Small Church Ministry. I don’t even remember how we first got connected, Ebonie, but she has spoken at our conferences, she’s helped us in our Network events, and she’s just, all around, an amazing person. So I’m excited to introduce you to Ebonie Mukasa. She is a, co-pastors her, with her husband down in Florida at Experience Church International. So welcome, Ebonie! What’s the weather like by you today?
Ebonie Mukasa 0:48
Today right now, it’s, it’s warm, quite warm, but we keep getting intermittent showers. Let’s call them torrential downpours because that’s really what they are.
Laurie Graham 0:59
Well, I’m in, I’m in Tucson. So we get monsoons, which means terrible storm for like 10 minutes, and then it goes away.
Ebonie Mukasa 1:06
That’s exactly here.
Laurie Graham 1:09
So we’re both in warm parts of the country, except that you get a lot more humidity than we do. So anyway. Well, it’s a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I am so glad you’re here. I am super excited to talk about outreach, specifically with you, because I know you define outreach a little differently than some other people in churches. So why are you excited to talk about outreach today?
Ebonie Mukasa 1:33
I’m excited because I truly think that effective, consistent, heartfelt, transparent, generous outreach, it can be the heartbeat of your church.
Laurie Graham 1:47
Okay, let’s just stop right there effective and genuine, heartfelt. I think you said transparent, like, why did you use all those words?
Ebonie Mukasa 1:57
I use those words because, oftentimes, outreach today is packaged. It’s packaged. There’s a little bow on it. It has a cool name. It has marketing flyers. We have perfect T-shirts, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m saying it has to be more than that. And the, the heart of outreach is really personal. It should be a personal connection with your community, those people around you, and so that’s why I say genuine, I say transparent. I don’t think outreach should have a motive other than the reason in which you’re going out. So if you’re attaching outreach, for me personally, and if you’re attaching outreach to trying to get numbers in, I don’t think you’re going to accomplish the full goal that God has planned for you through that work. Outreach, truly, we always think that it changes the people that we’re touching, but it truly, the first person it changes is us.
Laurie Graham 3:09
Yeah, and I think what you’re saying is so true about, it changes us if our motives are genuine, and transparent, and heartfelt. And I even love that you said personal. So before you and I got on today to do this, to do this podcast, I actually looked up the definition of outreach because I think we have different things in mind sometimes as churches, and as you mentioned, a lot of churches look at outreach as a means, as a means to get people in the church, and the definition of outreach, and I believe this is like, the original purpose of outreach isn’t about getting people in, it’s about, you know, like, serving people outside. It’s like reaching out, and if you look up the definition, it really talks about, like extending services beyond your usual limits. Going beyond who you are to a people group who might not have access to your services because outreach isn’t just a church word, it’s also a word in the community, and I think when we turn outreach into, hey, let’s do this and get everybody back at our church, like let’s grow our church through outreach programs. It just, to me feels manipulative, and also I think it turns people off from the church.
Ebonie Mukasa 4:23
I think it look, you know, here’s what I, it’s, it’s very tender to me because we’ve done so much out- outreach, authentically. Meaning that you know, just walking into a neighborhood or to a specific area that we knew that there were going to be homeless people, displaced individuals, and handing them a bag and I mean, going through the process of getting them to trust you because they don’t initially. They have been misused. They have been manipulated and their circumstances used to promote, you know, all sorts of agendas. They are intelligent, knowledgeable people. These are human beings. They are, they didn’t start, where, where you, where you found them. They have stories. They have lives. And I promise you every single time, I’m blown away by what they share with with us when they come to a place where they trust you. And so, that’s why I think, you know, when we talk about outreach, it’s really, I see it as us going out, taking the church out into the world.
Laurie Graham 5:40
Yeah, yeah.
Ebonie Mukasa 5:40
And, and allowing people to connect authentically with people of God, people who profess Jesus, people who label themselves as Christians, and letting people touch Jesus. You say like, it’s like the woman with the issue of blood. Jesus was in that throng of people pressed, it says He was pressed, and He felt her touch. And outreach is Jesus’s ministry. It just looks just like His ministry. Jesus wasn’t cooped up in the temple. He wasn’t, He was out walking the streets, and He was connecting with people, and He was healing people as He went, as He noticed them. I mean, saw them. So, I’m not saying outreach doesn’t have to be organized, and it shouldn’t be organized, it should. Moving a body of people, a group, a group moving in a community, you know, we have all sorts of procedures that we train on before we go out. Just, you just can’t go out any kind of way, but it still should be very personal, looking to connect with that person’s heart. You know?
Laurie Graham 6:49
I just love that you talk about personal because again, many, many churches who are looking for outreach ideas, what they’re looking for is the family night where they have the waterslide and they’re going to give people hotdogs and people come in, and oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes planning that type of an event has more to do with the program than the people. Like, even there, we’re staffing all this stuff, but many churches don’t have connection even happening with that. So how do you, so let’s, let me just shift. How do we move ourselves, if we’re kind of in a place of thinking outreach is about bringing people in and growing our local church? So there’s a kingdom issue here, right? Like growing, the church doesn’t have to be growing your local church, we can be the church on wheels, the church in the community, the church beyond the walls, right? We can grow Jesus’ church beyond our walls. But how do we make that shift? Like if you’re talking to a church that is used to doing outreach and measuring their success on who comes back to their church? How do we make that shift? It’s a big one to make.
Ebonie Mukasa 7:49
I’m telling you, it doesn’t, this is the, this is the challenge because people think that they have to have a huge amount of money, they have to have a huge amount of volunteers in order to make an impact. And I’m telling you that you don’t, and it’s one that Jesus wants us to go. If we have the mindset that it’s about the one, then everything else, all of the other pretense and all of that falls away, and the real focus, I’m telling you, the Holy Spirit will open your eyes and you will start seeing the world differently and you will start responding differently, and you’ll start providing like resources, whether that’s a word of encouragement, whether it’s prayer, whether it’s laughter, whether, whatever it is. See, we think that outreach, it has to be food, water, shelter, and sometimes it’s just a laugh.
Try this, go take two or three people and go to Walmart and say we’re going to be at Walmart for two hours, and we’re just going to connect with as many people as possible, and we’re going to make them laugh. I’m serious. We’re just going to make someone smile, and that that means standing at the meat part and where the chicken is or whatever, and you know, you’re looking at it and someone walks up and you just make some something light hearted. I’m being serious, you know?
Laurie Graham 9:18
Yeah!
Ebonie Mukasa 9:19
So it doesn’t have, I’m saying that down to the basic down to the mega outreaches, you know, and programs, all of them work, but they have to come from a place of sincerity, which is, don’t, with no expectation of return. Truly, that’s what real outreach is.
Laurie Graham 9:38
Yeah, I absolutely agree with you, no expectation of return. It’s when we’re, it’s when we are reaching out and serving without having an agenda for doing so. Like we’re actually, you know, meeting someone’s needs. And I love that you talked about identifying needs in your community because so oftentimes we’re looking for outreach ideas, and we’re looking what other churches do and I just think, a lot of times, we’re trying to transport things in that have nothing to do with our community. Like we’re gonna do this because your church did that, but when you talk about identifying needs and meeting needs, I just interviewed on Karen Altizer for the podcast and she is a big promoter of Grief Share, like she has led Grief Share over and over again, and that is outreach. That is meeting people’s needs, because she has seen that as a need. So when it comes to like to your church and identifying the needs around your community, in your small church in Florida, what does that look, what does outreach look like in your church?
Ebonie Mukasa 10:36
Right now, to be honest, we, uh, we have, are still rebounding from COVID because we were small. A lot of our, we have professionals in our, in our gathering, and some of them have relocated out of, to other states for work, etc. So what we, we started some time ago called Love Notes, and these are handwritten notes that we would send to, we’ve done our juvenile detention center. They were, they were at capacity. 99 teens in juvenile detention, and we reached out and, and did a love note card. So we had, we call it a Writers Guild, right? So we invite all of, anybody who wants to come from our network, and from our church, we get together and we, everybody gets, like I said, there’s 10 people, everybody gets 10 cards, and we just play worship. We have a time of prayer. We have a time of worship. And then we play worship music and allow, and tell them to allow the Holy Spirit to just write what some, what’s supposed to be written in that card. And then we attach the, what do you call those the oatmeal cookie? The, because everything had to be individually wrapped, and then we prayed over the cards, and we trusted God that the right child would receive the right card. And that, and I’m telling you, the response we got from the, what do you call the, the people who manage the.
Laurie Graham 12:16
The center?
Ebonie Mukasa 12:18
What do you call it? The, yes, the the people who are in there. I don’t want to say jailer, because that’s such an old word. That’s not it. But we’ve got so much response from that. And we’ve got people as they asked us to come back and they asked us do we do that for other because they know other teen programs that the children aren’t incarcerated, but they are in high risk groups, all of that. So that’s one. So what we’re doing right now is we just continued our love notes outreach, which is, now it’s a mailing list. We called, in COVID, we did what we call Good Mail, and that was just randomly sending out mailings, whether it’s a card, whether it’s something to our mailing list, to get something good in the mail. That was it. And people I’m telling you, people were just like, I can’t believe I received a card. Like you thought of us, you know? So that, that’s one example of an outreach that we’re doing. And I said that one because I think any church right now, if they’re looking to really connect people with people, they’re willing to encourage people, to help people understand they’re not alone, they’re still in community, that you can send cards.
Laurie Graham 13:38
Yeah, yeah. And it’s simple, and it’s also not something that you know, every church is doing. It’s not like you have to find another church who’s doing it to figure out how they do it and make it work. You literally saw a need and decided to step up and do it and it doesn’t take a lot of money and it doesn’t take a lot of people and there’s not a lot of stress around it. and you know, to get together like I love it.
Ebonie Mukasa 14:01
We don’t insert a gift card, like, you know, everybody inserts an envelope that those, those outreach that type of mailing does not have a return envelope with a stamp to send any donation back. There’s no, ask for them, again, we are doing this because this is the work of Christ, right? And so we’re not asking, we’re not doing with the expectation of return, but I have to tell you, every time we do it, somebody sends a check, a big, a nice check. Somebody says, you know what, I’m going to, we go online and we have a reoccurring gift that’s been set up for X, Y, and Z, you know, unexpectedly, not even ask, but I’m just saying that people respond to authenticity, and people respond to sincerity. People want to feel love and that is what our responsibility is.
Laurie Graham 15:06
Yeah. So when you think about, like, you know, finding out the needs in your community. So we have, you know, a few 100 small churches that are listening to this podcast, and they’re like, outreach, you know, we’re trying to shift from just doing outreach to get people in our church, right? Because that is pretty manipulative, and really thinking about meeting needs. So how do we best find out like what the needs are in our community? Because for some, it’s homeless, for some it’s grieving, for some there’s a, you know, an adult daycare center down the street. How do we find what the needs are, but also, how do we choose? Because when you really start looking at needs, for me, when I’ve done that, there’s just a lot like, there’s a lot of places we could go.
Ebonie Mukasa 15:49
A lot. I get it. I get that because I used to be in tears coming, returning from our outreach, feeding outreaches to the homeless in our community, I will be in tears every time because no matter how much we provided, the need wasn’t, it, we, and you know it’s not my tears, one of the people that we, did not receive a lunch bag from us said to me, don’t worry. He said, you’ve done your part. He said, God will send someone else. I trust that God will send someone else and I’ll get I’ll get fed today.
Laurie Graham 16:24
Wow. Somebody that you weren’t able to feed?
Ebonie Mukasa 16:26
I was not able to give them a bag. He saw my eyes welling up. I try not to do it, but you know, I, it just was overwhelming and, and he, he comforted me. And the Lord just said to me, then you don’t have to cry because I have others with the same heart and saying yes to this call. And that’s the first thing I want to tell anybody doing this type of connecting outreach, allow the Holy Spirit to, He is our helper, He is on the job, okay? He’s not passive. In a time, just take a moment of prayer, some time of prayer. And I’m not talking like hours, I’m just saying, if you’re getting ready to sit down, and think about this, first dedicate it back to God. Take a time of prayer and ask the Holy Spirit, open my eyes now to see and to hear, and to respond. Right? Show me what is in, in my reach. Show me what’s in, it, what I can do, right? And what that means is the Holy Spirit knows your bank account. He knows, He knows the amount of volunteers we have and don’t have. He knows your capacity. And so I really, really believe this, that when we approach the Throne of Grace, God says the Throne of Grace, He says, His grace is sufficient, right?
So everything that we need, including our desire to be helpful, He is sufficient in that area. So, allow the Holy Spirit to move you with compassion. What does that look like for you? You might not get anything, but you might go out to the gas station and you might see that oh, my goodness, it’s cold, and even though I might, I see these people with shoes on, but they don’t have socks. That was another outreach we did. We just went on a passed out socks. It was a little, we got a cold front here, and we went on a passed out sock, right. And, again, it’s meeting the need. We’re not just passing out, we’re asking them, how are you? You know, do you want, do you need any prayer? Every, usually they are 99% gonna say yes, you know? And, and going from there, right? We’re not collecting names, and unless they tell us, you know, so something like that.
Ebonie Mukasa 18:53
In addition, you can take it another step, and that is you can survey your, your congregation. Like I said, you’re, you all are a pool of the surrounding community. And so all of you all are hearing, seeing, and so bring it together and say, hey, give feedback. Even if you only got in five people to respond out of a church of 100, you could do one of those things possibly. And that’s a start, right? And so, you know, faith without works is dead. So when people start seeing you do this type of work, their faith is increased, their trust in you is increased, and they started saying, oh, my goodness, they listened? They really heard me and they did something? Okay, I’m gonna think about this. I’m gonna look. What do I, and now you have to be careful because you’ll get inundated, too.
Laurie Graham 19:41
Yeah, well, I love how you, you make it sound so simple. Like see you need and address the need. See aneed and address the need. But I believe that the more us as individuals actually do that, and people see that, they start going, oh, because outreach events are a bit extensive. They’re pretty overwhelming. A lot of people compartmentalize, like, oh, we’re doing, we do outreach events four times a year or something like that, but when it becomes a lifestyle, that this is what we do as Jesus followers, we see needs and we meet needs, something so different happens. There’s one of our churches who follows us out in LA, she spoke at one of our conferences, but she and her daughter keep little, little brown bags in their trunk and when they go by people who maybe are homeless or on the street, they just stop and they have these pre-made bags. Last year, I was running to Costco and my, my daughter, my 21 year old daughter said, oh, Mom, get these get these granola bars for me. And I’m like, well, she’s gluten-free and dairy-free. She couldn’t eat these granola bars. I’m like, why? Why do you want those? She said, oh, Mom, I give one every day to so and so who’s on the street by where she goes to college. And I was like, oh, I got all like teary. Like, I’m like, you know, and she’s like, Mom, yeah, I do that every day. I’m just out of them. And I’m like, how sweet. She’s like, well, I just want them to have something nutritious mom, it’s, that’s just such a hard life. You know? And I’m just like, you know that, but that’s somebody embodying, right? Like, yeah, the true meaning of outreach.
Ebonie Mukasa 21:04
That is so good. That, that is so good because when we started our homeless, our outreach, we used to call them displaced, because many of them were in transition. Many of them were not permanently homeless, many of them were living in their car temporarily, you know, in transition, all sorts of things. And so we started when we were ministering, when we were using a parks recreation room as our Sunday meeting place. We started with the individuals in the park that we didn’t know, the park was, you know, home to them, but we soon discovered, and we started, you know, you know, giving them lunch on the Sundays that we were there, which was every Sunday for that time. But when we transitioned, and we went to home church ministry, I don’t know if you knew we were, at one time, we were home church ministry. And, and what we did was that exactly, we call it See. Stop. Love. That’s, that was, that’s the name of our homeless outreach. See. Stop. Love.
And so what we would do is do exactly that. Everybody would have these lunch bags in their car, and nonperishable items, and we would encourage them, as you walk along the way, that, we’re not asking you to go out of your way, we’re saying as you walk along the way, you’re going to see, you’re going to stop, and you’re going to love. And we obviously put safety measures and, you know, told people about all that stuff, but it was just, it’s simple. We have, here in Miami, I’m sure in big cities, a lot of people have people who are at the light, the stoplight, they, asking for funds and things like that, well, it was stopped, and I see you, and so I’m gonna give you the dollar, but I’m giving you a lunch bag, too.
Laurie Graham 22:58
Yeah. So you stop. Love.
Ebonie Mukasa 22:59
That was it. So you’re absolutely right. And I think that’s excellent for any church, to, if you want to start doing this type of, this type of outreach to connect, the connecting outreach, that would be an easy way, right? Again, we will put our, on those things we would put the label of our church so you know where you’re getting it from, and our website and phone number. But again, we would not add a solicitation to that. We would add tracks. So it was a track about prayer, track about you know, God loves us, it was always something that someone in that circumstance might be asking or questioning. Does God see me? Does God love me? You know, we would do love notes in those too. So sometimes we would, our love notes group would write love notes to go into the bag. So it was you know.
Laurie Graham 23:57
Yeah. You know, I was I was gonna mention also when you talked about the love notes, I love that you had people coming together to do it together because, so many times, doing things in community with our church. It just inspires people. It makes them more comfortable. You know, I remember going to a hospital once to visit somebody and I had a friend over, she was just over and I got a call and I’m like, come with me. And she’s like, what? And I’m like, just come to the hospital with me. She says, I’ve never done that. I’m like, oh my gosh, why not? Like come to the hospital with me. And you know, we brought a little bag of some snacks. She’s like, why are you doing that? I said because people in hospitals forget to eat all the time. And so she came to the waiting room and just sat there and I just will never forget. She’s like, I just want to thank you for bringing me like, I had no idea. And I think sometimes we need to just encourage each other like, hey, come do this with me. Like let’s do this together. Because sometimes outreach can feel very intimidating and not just to a homeless population, but like you mentioned at Walmart, starting a conversation with someone or handing out water bottles at the park or, you know, whatever that would be, but if we could just serve like, can you imagine if all of us individuals in churches, like got out of the church like, like, let’s take Jesus out of the church.
Ebonie Mukasa 25:14
Yes. It’s, I mean, come on, what are we doing?
Laurie Graham 25:18
Yeah. Yeah.
Ebonie Mukasa 25:20
I’m telling you, when you when you begin to move in this way, something unlocks in you, something a lot that you didn’t even know was, was hidden or behind a door. And there is no going back. There is no going back to your eyes being opened. There’s no going back from the response of gratitude that you received from someone, or someone breaking down in tears, because no one has spoken to them as a person. It just someone saying I haven’t, we had one gentleman one time, just broke down in tears with us, and we asked him, did he need prayer? He said, no, I want you to pray for my mother who I haven’t seen in XYZ years and I can’t go home. I don’t want to go home because I don’t want her to see me like this, I probably won’t see her again, but would you pray for her, her health? And we prayed for her and he was just so broke, like just, I can’t explain like a relief washed over him. I will never be the same after that. I will, I will never be the, I will never think that my prayers don’t matter that, that prayer doesn’t matter, that God doesn’t move through our prayers. That changed me personally, you see? So this outreach, when we talk about growing and maturing in Christ, our personal walk with Jesus, if you want more of Him, first of all, there’s more. The Scripture tells us there’s deeper depths, higher heights, right? So if you want more of him, I just say a give Him every, give Him access. Give Him access to you. Allow yourself to be used by Him, allow yourself to be His ambassador in the world, you know?
Laurie Graham 27:16
And today, like today, because people listening you know, when we talk about outreach, we make it this big thing. Like we have to plan ahead, or we’ve got to have supplies or, or I can’t do it because I’m too shy. But Ebonie can do it, because she’s so good at it, but I think what you said earlier, you said ask the Holy Spirit to show you needs. At, if we leave our house there are needs next door, on the street, at the store, at our workplace, at our schools, anywhere we go there are, we are surrounded by needs.
Ebonie Mukasa 27:24
Yes, you know, the Scripture tells us don’t grow weary in doing good. So we, when we think about ourselves, that one thing that we have to remember is that no matter what you do, hidden or seen, it will affect someone.
Laurie Graham 28:05
Yes, yes.
Ebonie Mukasa 28:06
Because we live connected. We live in community. My decisions affect someone else. The decisions I made right here in my house today, behind my four walls are going to affect someone else. So, you know, for the introvert, because people think that I’m an extrovert, I’m not. I am an introvert. I love being behind the scenes. I love being quiet. I have learned extrovert tendencies, and the Holy Spirit because I’ve said yes to Him, has taught me how to, it, when it’s about Jesus, I can be all, all there, now, if you ask me something else maybe not. So what what other kinds of outreaches can we do? You know you can, you know outreach, you could do things just to benefit your community? So why not be the person who walks down the street with your little stick with the little pointer on it and pick up the trash that on your street? That, I’m telling you, people think, you know, why? Because you are blessing someone else. You are benefiting your community. I’m not talking just, I mean, I think that we have given the world our identity when it comes to you know, doing good in the world and you know, social good they call it. I think we’ve allowed the world to take on that banner and, and make it seem like well, they’re doing it but that’s who we suppose to be.
Laurie Graham 29:32
It is. I totally agree.
Ebonie Mukasa 29:35
That’s our identity. That’s the legacy that Christ left for us. Go into the world and preach this good news, but we think the good news is just on, I mean the obviously the, the total package and is eternity with Christ, salvation, but then after all of that the living on this Earth, how the good news comes to how we live that out, there’s so much in between. There’s so much in between. So when you say us doing good, and you think, oh, well, that’s just volunteerism. Stop letting those words like, take away your identity. Labeling, oh, that’s just volunteerism, that’s not outreach.
Laurie Graham 30:25
That’s people serving people. That’s what God, that’s like, ah, it’s so much our call. I just believe it’s so much the light of Jesus. Like, when we go to visit somebody at a hospital, or a Care Center, talk to the other people passing by. Be kind to the people at the desk, you know. Start visiting the next door neighbor of this one who never seems to have visitors. Like, I think we’ve got to break out of our, you know, we’re doing life together with our church people, and start sharing that life and the energy, and the good stuff of Jesus with the people we pass, because I think Jesus would have done that, because He did do that.
Ebonie Mukasa 31:02
How about we just put the character of Christ in action?
Laurie Graham 31:05
Yeah.
Ebonie Mukasa 31:06
Can we just say it like that?
Laurie Graham 31:07
Yeah!
Ebonie Mukasa 31:07
Let’s let’s, let’s, let’s move away less even from the word outreach, right? Because we’ve got so many, you know, misconceptions about it and people use it in all sorts of stuff, and, and let’s just say that we’re going to live out the character of Christ. So we’re going to be kind, when we can, you know. We’re going to be gentle, we’re going to be faithful people. We’re going to be loyal. We’re going to show up. When we say yes, our yes means our yes, right? We’re going to be a blessing to other people. We’re going to, you know, I mean, we’re going to be forgiving and have long suffering. And let’s just get about doing that. If you can get about doing that, then, then now you are kind, and so now whatever, what, your life, through your life, kindness exudes. So that might be, you know, and I’m saying that can translate into communal work as well doing it as a community, doing it as a collective, as well as doing it as a, living it as an, as an individual.
Laurie Graham 32:14
Yeah, absolutely. For sure. You know, as we get close to kind of ending our time together for now, Ebonie, because you and I will talk again, but when I think of this conversation on outreach, like a few things coming to mind is just that shift that it doesn’t have to be a big thing. Oftentimes, just the connection, of connecting with somebody is so important, you know, asking God, you know, what, what needs are around me, opening ourselves up to that. Maybe serving the community to see what needs are out there, if you’re not sure where to start, and addressing the needs, addressing the needs that we walk by daily, addressing the needs that we see in our community, whether we’re working with a program with our church, or even just as individuals, like, I love what you said, like, you know, let’s start acting out the character of Christ. You know, that’s what He’s called us to do, right?
Ebonie Mukasa 33:08
Absolutely. I think it’s such a beautiful way to live, and, and it’s such a, I just look at it as a way that we don’t do it because of this, but you know, God’s word, He can’t go back on His word. He, He has promises for us when we live obediently to His word, right? And so, as you live this kind of life, you will have this kind of response in your life, right? So as you walk in kindness, and you live kindly do, I mean, you, when you, you’re going to have kindness return. We don’t look for it, but God is faithful. God is faithful. God is going to, now we don’t give and we expect every single thing in kind, that’s not how God does, but you know, God’s grace will abound even the more in your life, right? And so, I encourage a pastor or ministry leader who’s listening to this and, and outreach has become a burden, right? And why is it a burden? Because you’re not getting the numbers. What you expected in return for doing x, y, &z and, and I encourage them to pray and to trust God by releasing themselves from them. That’s not what God, that’s not what He’s put on you. You put that on yourself. He didn’t put that on you.
You got, we got enough that we got to carry in responsibility. We don’t need to be adding to it. I tell my son, don’t, don’t help the devil. He’s already pursuing, don’t, don’t, don’t help him, right? Don’t put more or yourself and it’,s it’s not necessary. You know, flow in the purpose of connecting the hearts of people to God letting people touch, feel, see Jesus, letting them hear Jesus through you, right? Using it as an opportunity to mature your congregation to mature them so that it’s, they become less self-focused, and more, more community-focused. You will see kindness erupting in your congregation. If there’s a lot of infighting and a lot of inbickering and all that, you know, when people begin to exercise this type of, you know, freedom that we have in Christ. You know, it changes you. It changes you, and so you are seeing people change. So I encourage to just, you know, liberate yourself and just serve freely.
Laurie Graham 35:57
I love it. Ebonie, thank you for starting this conversation, and I’m saying starting this because, you all who are listening, we really pray that you would continue this conversation. Like, take this podcast episode, share it with somebody, talk to somebody at your church about your view of outreach, about how maybe there’s a shift you’re feeling or about a need that you see. Like, as we live in community in our churches, these conversations are so important to unpack the way we’ve been thinking or the way we do think and just really inviting God into those conversations with others, so that we can kind of blow past this modern church mentality wherever we’ve gotten stuck in numbers and programs and, I don’t know, whatever we’re expecting out of churches instead of just living, living in the community that God’s called us to be. So Ebonie, thank you so much for being with us. If people want to connect with you, or find you, or chat with you how would they do that?
Ebonie Mukasa 36:53
You can visit our church website experiencechurchintl.org or you can visit my website just eboniemukasa. My name is E-B-O-N-I-E, not Y. E-B-O-N-I-E M-U-K-A-S-A.com.
Laurie Graham 37:12
Awesome. We will make sure to drop it in the notes. And as always, you all if you have found encouragement in this podcast, would you please leave a rating? Leave a five-star rating leave us a comment on the podcast. The more comments that are left in the ratings, it actually drives it up into the algorithms, you know how we all know how all the social media works, so that people can actually find our podcast. We have small churches everywhere as they get connected, they’re like where have you been? Like why haven’t I heard about you and so the more we can do that, the more we want to meet some needs because there are people struggling in small churches just all over the planet and our goal like is just a reach them all. So that’s what we’re about. So leave us a review on the podcast. We will drop your links in the show notes, Ebonie, so people can find you, and as always, you all, like this week, go be a light!
Laurie Graham 0:01
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast.
Laurie Graham 0:15
Hey, hey! Welcome back to the Small Church Ministry Podcast. I get to do one of my favorite things again today, which is introducing you to someone that I love. I met Ebonie through Small Church Ministry. I don’t even remember how we first got connected, Ebonie, but she has spoken at our conferences, she’s helped us in our Network events, and she’s just, all around, an amazing person. So I’m excited to introduce you to Ebonie Mukasa. She is a, co-pastors her, with her husband down in Florida at Experience Church International. So welcome, Ebonie! What’s the weather like by you today?
Ebonie Mukasa 0:48
Today right now, it’s, it’s warm, quite warm, but we keep getting intermittent showers. Let’s call them torrential downpours because that’s really what they are.
Laurie Graham 0:59
Well, I’m in, I’m in Tucson. So we get monsoons, which means terrible storm for like 10 minutes, and then it goes away.
Ebonie Mukasa 1:06
That’s exactly here.
Laurie Graham 1:09
So we’re both in warm parts of the country, except that you get a lot more humidity than we do. So anyway. Well, it’s a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I am so glad you’re here. I am super excited to talk about outreach, specifically with you, because I know you define outreach a little differently than some other people in churches. So why are you excited to talk about outreach today?
Ebonie Mukasa 1:33
I’m excited because I truly think that effective, consistent, heartfelt, transparent, generous outreach, it can be the heartbeat of your church.
Laurie Graham 1:47
Okay, let’s just stop right there effective and genuine, heartfelt. I think you said transparent, like, why did you use all those words?
Ebonie Mukasa 1:57
I use those words because, oftentimes, outreach today is packaged. It’s packaged. There’s a little bow on it. It has a cool name. It has marketing flyers. We have perfect T-shirts, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m saying it has to be more than that. And the, the heart of outreach is really personal. It should be a personal connection with your community, those people around you, and so that’s why I say genuine, I say transparent. I don’t think outreach should have a motive other than the reason in which you’re going out. So if you’re attaching outreach, for me personally, and if you’re attaching outreach to trying to get numbers in, I don’t think you’re going to accomplish the full goal that God has planned for you through that work. Outreach, truly, we always think that it changes the people that we’re touching, but it truly, the first person it changes is us.
Laurie Graham 3:09
Yeah, and I think what you’re saying is so true about, it changes us if our motives are genuine, and transparent, and heartfelt. And I even love that you said personal. So before you and I got on today to do this, to do this podcast, I actually looked up the definition of outreach because I think we have different things in mind sometimes as churches, and as you mentioned, a lot of churches look at outreach as a means, as a means to get people in the church, and the definition of outreach, and I believe this is like, the original purpose of outreach isn’t about getting people in, it’s about, you know, like, serving people outside. It’s like reaching out, and if you look up the definition, it really talks about, like extending services beyond your usual limits. Going beyond who you are to a people group who might not have access to your services because outreach isn’t just a church word, it’s also a word in the community, and I think when we turn outreach into, hey, let’s do this and get everybody back at our church, like let’s grow our church through outreach programs. It just, to me feels manipulative, and also I think it turns people off from the church.
Ebonie Mukasa 4:23
I think it look, you know, here’s what I, it’s, it’s very tender to me because we’ve done so much out- outreach, authentically. Meaning that you know, just walking into a neighborhood or to a specific area that we knew that there were going to be homeless people, displaced individuals, and handing them a bag and I mean, going through the process of getting them to trust you because they don’t initially. They have been misused. They have been manipulated and their circumstances used to promote, you know, all sorts of agendas. They are intelligent, knowledgeable people. These are human beings. They are, they didn’t start, where, where you, where you found them. They have stories. They have lives. And I promise you every single time, I’m blown away by what they share with with us when they come to a place where they trust you. And so, that’s why I think, you know, when we talk about outreach, it’s really, I see it as us going out, taking the church out into the world.
Laurie Graham 5:40
Yeah, yeah.
Ebonie Mukasa 5:40
And, and allowing people to connect authentically with people of God, people who profess Jesus, people who label themselves as Christians, and letting people touch Jesus. You say like, it’s like the woman with the issue of blood. Jesus was in that throng of people pressed, it says He was pressed, and He felt her touch. And outreach is Jesus’s ministry. It just looks just like His ministry. Jesus wasn’t cooped up in the temple. He wasn’t, He was out walking the streets, and He was connecting with people, and He was healing people as He went, as He noticed them. I mean, saw them. So, I’m not saying outreach doesn’t have to be organized, and it shouldn’t be organized, it should. Moving a body of people, a group, a group moving in a community, you know, we have all sorts of procedures that we train on before we go out. Just, you just can’t go out any kind of way, but it still should be very personal, looking to connect with that person’s heart. You know?
Laurie Graham 6:49
I just love that you talk about personal because again, many, many churches who are looking for outreach ideas, what they’re looking for is the family night where they have the waterslide and they’re going to give people hotdogs and people come in, and oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes planning that type of an event has more to do with the program than the people. Like, even there, we’re staffing all this stuff, but many churches don’t have connection even happening with that. So how do you, so let’s, let me just shift. How do we move ourselves, if we’re kind of in a place of thinking outreach is about bringing people in and growing our local church? So there’s a kingdom issue here, right? Like growing, the church doesn’t have to be growing your local church, we can be the church on wheels, the church in the community, the church beyond the walls, right? We can grow Jesus’ church beyond our walls. But how do we make that shift? Like if you’re talking to a church that is used to doing outreach and measuring their success on who comes back to their church? How do we make that shift? It’s a big one to make.
Ebonie Mukasa 7:49
I’m telling you, it doesn’t, this is the, this is the challenge because people think that they have to have a huge amount of money, they have to have a huge amount of volunteers in order to make an impact. And I’m telling you that you don’t, and it’s one that Jesus wants us to go. If we have the mindset that it’s about the one, then everything else, all of the other pretense and all of that falls away, and the real focus, I’m telling you, the Holy Spirit will open your eyes and you will start seeing the world differently and you will start responding differently, and you’ll start providing like resources, whether that’s a word of encouragement, whether it’s prayer, whether it’s laughter, whether, whatever it is. See, we think that outreach, it has to be food, water, shelter, and sometimes it’s just a laugh.
Try this, go take two or three people and go to Walmart and say we’re going to be at Walmart for two hours, and we’re just going to connect with as many people as possible, and we’re going to make them laugh. I’m serious. We’re just going to make someone smile, and that that means standing at the meat part and where the chicken is or whatever, and you know, you’re looking at it and someone walks up and you just make some something light hearted. I’m being serious, you know?
Laurie Graham 9:18
Yeah!
Ebonie Mukasa 9:19
So it doesn’t have, I’m saying that down to the basic down to the mega outreaches, you know, and programs, all of them work, but they have to come from a place of sincerity, which is, don’t, with no expectation of return. Truly, that’s what real outreach is.
Laurie Graham 9:38
Yeah, I absolutely agree with you, no expectation of return. It’s when we’re, it’s when we are reaching out and serving without having an agenda for doing so. Like we’re actually, you know, meeting someone’s needs. And I love that you talked about identifying needs in your community because so oftentimes we’re looking for outreach ideas, and we’re looking what other churches do and I just think, a lot of times, we’re trying to transport things in that have nothing to do with our community. Like we’re gonna do this because your church did that, but when you talk about identifying needs and meeting needs, I just interviewed on Karen Altizer for the podcast and she is a big promoter of Grief Share, like she has led Grief Share over and over again, and that is outreach. That is meeting people’s needs, because she has seen that as a need. So when it comes to like to your church and identifying the needs around your community, in your small church in Florida, what does that look, what does outreach look like in your church?
Ebonie Mukasa 10:36
Right now, to be honest, we, uh, we have, are still rebounding from COVID because we were small. A lot of our, we have professionals in our, in our gathering, and some of them have relocated out of, to other states for work, etc. So what we, we started some time ago called Love Notes, and these are handwritten notes that we would send to, we’ve done our juvenile detention center. They were, they were at capacity. 99 teens in juvenile detention, and we reached out and, and did a love note card. So we had, we call it a Writers Guild, right? So we invite all of, anybody who wants to come from our network, and from our church, we get together and we, everybody gets, like I said, there’s 10 people, everybody gets 10 cards, and we just play worship. We have a time of prayer. We have a time of worship. And then we play worship music and allow, and tell them to allow the Holy Spirit to just write what some, what’s supposed to be written in that card. And then we attach the, what do you call those the oatmeal cookie? The, because everything had to be individually wrapped, and then we prayed over the cards, and we trusted God that the right child would receive the right card. And that, and I’m telling you, the response we got from the, what do you call the, the people who manage the.
Laurie Graham 12:16
The center?
Ebonie Mukasa 12:18
What do you call it? The, yes, the the people who are in there. I don’t want to say jailer, because that’s such an old word. That’s not it. But we’ve got so much response from that. And we’ve got people as they asked us to come back and they asked us do we do that for other because they know other teen programs that the children aren’t incarcerated, but they are in high risk groups, all of that. So that’s one. So what we’re doing right now is we just continued our love notes outreach, which is, now it’s a mailing list. We called, in COVID, we did what we call Good Mail, and that was just randomly sending out mailings, whether it’s a card, whether it’s something to our mailing list, to get something good in the mail. That was it. And people I’m telling you, people were just like, I can’t believe I received a card. Like you thought of us, you know? So that, that’s one example of an outreach that we’re doing. And I said that one because I think any church right now, if they’re looking to really connect people with people, they’re willing to encourage people, to help people understand they’re not alone, they’re still in community, that you can send cards.
Laurie Graham 13:38
Yeah, yeah. And it’s simple, and it’s also not something that you know, every church is doing. It’s not like you have to find another church who’s doing it to figure out how they do it and make it work. You literally saw a need and decided to step up and do it and it doesn’t take a lot of money and it doesn’t take a lot of people and there’s not a lot of stress around it. and you know, to get together like I love it.
Ebonie Mukasa 14:01
We don’t insert a gift card, like, you know, everybody inserts an envelope that those, those outreach that type of mailing does not have a return envelope with a stamp to send any donation back. There’s no, ask for them, again, we are doing this because this is the work of Christ, right? And so we’re not asking, we’re not doing with the expectation of return, but I have to tell you, every time we do it, somebody sends a check, a big, a nice check. Somebody says, you know what, I’m going to, we go online and we have a reoccurring gift that’s been set up for X, Y, and Z, you know, unexpectedly, not even ask, but I’m just saying that people respond to authenticity, and people respond to sincerity. People want to feel love and that is what our responsibility is.
Laurie Graham 15:06
Yeah. So when you think about, like, you know, finding out the needs in your community. So we have, you know, a few 100 small churches that are listening to this podcast, and they’re like, outreach, you know, we’re trying to shift from just doing outreach to get people in our church, right? Because that is pretty manipulative, and really thinking about meeting needs. So how do we best find out like what the needs are in our community? Because for some, it’s homeless, for some it’s grieving, for some there’s a, you know, an adult daycare center down the street. How do we find what the needs are, but also, how do we choose? Because when you really start looking at needs, for me, when I’ve done that, there’s just a lot like, there’s a lot of places we could go.
Ebonie Mukasa 15:49
A lot. I get it. I get that because I used to be in tears coming, returning from our outreach, feeding outreaches to the homeless in our community, I will be in tears every time because no matter how much we provided, the need wasn’t, it, we, and you know it’s not my tears, one of the people that we, did not receive a lunch bag from us said to me, don’t worry. He said, you’ve done your part. He said, God will send someone else. I trust that God will send someone else and I’ll get I’ll get fed today.
Laurie Graham 16:24
Wow. Somebody that you weren’t able to feed?
Ebonie Mukasa 16:26
I was not able to give them a bag. He saw my eyes welling up. I try not to do it, but you know, I, it just was overwhelming and, and he, he comforted me. And the Lord just said to me, then you don’t have to cry because I have others with the same heart and saying yes to this call. And that’s the first thing I want to tell anybody doing this type of connecting outreach, allow the Holy Spirit to, He is our helper, He is on the job, okay? He’s not passive. In a time, just take a moment of prayer, some time of prayer. And I’m not talking like hours, I’m just saying, if you’re getting ready to sit down, and think about this, first dedicate it back to God. Take a time of prayer and ask the Holy Spirit, open my eyes now to see and to hear, and to respond. Right? Show me what is in, in my reach. Show me what’s in, it, what I can do, right? And what that means is the Holy Spirit knows your bank account. He knows, He knows the amount of volunteers we have and don’t have. He knows your capacity. And so I really, really believe this, that when we approach the Throne of Grace, God says the Throne of Grace, He says, His grace is sufficient, right?
So everything that we need, including our desire to be helpful, He is sufficient in that area. So, allow the Holy Spirit to move you with compassion. What does that look like for you? You might not get anything, but you might go out to the gas station and you might see that oh, my goodness, it’s cold, and even though I might, I see these people with shoes on, but they don’t have socks. That was another outreach we did. We just went on a passed out socks. It was a little, we got a cold front here, and we went on a passed out sock, right. And, again, it’s meeting the need. We’re not just passing out, we’re asking them, how are you? You know, do you want, do you need any prayer? Every, usually they are 99% gonna say yes, you know? And, and going from there, right? We’re not collecting names, and unless they tell us, you know, so something like that.
Ebonie Mukasa 18:53
In addition, you can take it another step, and that is you can survey your, your congregation. Like I said, you’re, you all are a pool of the surrounding community. And so all of you all are hearing, seeing, and so bring it together and say, hey, give feedback. Even if you only got in five people to respond out of a church of 100, you could do one of those things possibly. And that’s a start, right? And so, you know, faith without works is dead. So when people start seeing you do this type of work, their faith is increased, their trust in you is increased, and they started saying, oh, my goodness, they listened? They really heard me and they did something? Okay, I’m gonna think about this. I’m gonna look. What do I, and now you have to be careful because you’ll get inundated, too.
Laurie Graham 19:41
Yeah, well, I love how you, you make it sound so simple. Like see you need and address the need. See aneed and address the need. But I believe that the more us as individuals actually do that, and people see that, they start going, oh, because outreach events are a bit extensive. They’re pretty overwhelming. A lot of people compartmentalize, like, oh, we’re doing, we do outreach events four times a year or something like that, but when it becomes a lifestyle, that this is what we do as Jesus followers, we see needs and we meet needs, something so different happens. There’s one of our churches who follows us out in LA, she spoke at one of our conferences, but she and her daughter keep little, little brown bags in their trunk and when they go by people who maybe are homeless or on the street, they just stop and they have these pre-made bags. Last year, I was running to Costco and my, my daughter, my 21 year old daughter said, oh, Mom, get these get these granola bars for me. And I’m like, well, she’s gluten-free and dairy-free. She couldn’t eat these granola bars. I’m like, why? Why do you want those? She said, oh, Mom, I give one every day to so and so who’s on the street by where she goes to college. And I was like, oh, I got all like teary. Like, I’m like, you know, and she’s like, Mom, yeah, I do that every day. I’m just out of them. And I’m like, how sweet. She’s like, well, I just want them to have something nutritious mom, it’s, that’s just such a hard life. You know? And I’m just like, you know that, but that’s somebody embodying, right? Like, yeah, the true meaning of outreach.
Ebonie Mukasa 21:04
That is so good. That, that is so good because when we started our homeless, our outreach, we used to call them displaced, because many of them were in transition. Many of them were not permanently homeless, many of them were living in their car temporarily, you know, in transition, all sorts of things. And so we started when we were ministering, when we were using a parks recreation room as our Sunday meeting place. We started with the individuals in the park that we didn’t know, the park was, you know, home to them, but we soon discovered, and we started, you know, you know, giving them lunch on the Sundays that we were there, which was every Sunday for that time. But when we transitioned, and we went to home church ministry, I don’t know if you knew we were, at one time, we were home church ministry. And, and what we did was that exactly, we call it See. Stop. Love. That’s, that was, that’s the name of our homeless outreach. See. Stop. Love.
And so what we would do is do exactly that. Everybody would have these lunch bags in their car, and nonperishable items, and we would encourage them, as you walk along the way, that, we’re not asking you to go out of your way, we’re saying as you walk along the way, you’re going to see, you’re going to stop, and you’re going to love. And we obviously put safety measures and, you know, told people about all that stuff, but it was just, it’s simple. We have, here in Miami, I’m sure in big cities, a lot of people have people who are at the light, the stoplight, they, asking for funds and things like that, well, it was stopped, and I see you, and so I’m gonna give you the dollar, but I’m giving you a lunch bag, too.
Laurie Graham 22:58
Yeah. So you stop. Love.
Ebonie Mukasa 22:59
That was it. So you’re absolutely right. And I think that’s excellent for any church, to, if you want to start doing this type of, this type of outreach to connect, the connecting outreach, that would be an easy way, right? Again, we will put our, on those things we would put the label of our church so you know where you’re getting it from, and our website and phone number. But again, we would not add a solicitation to that. We would add tracks. So it was a track about prayer, track about you know, God loves us, it was always something that someone in that circumstance might be asking or questioning. Does God see me? Does God love me? You know, we would do love notes in those too. So sometimes we would, our love notes group would write love notes to go into the bag. So it was you know.
Laurie Graham 23:57
Yeah. You know, I was I was gonna mention also when you talked about the love notes, I love that you had people coming together to do it together because, so many times, doing things in community with our church. It just inspires people. It makes them more comfortable. You know, I remember going to a hospital once to visit somebody and I had a friend over, she was just over and I got a call and I’m like, come with me. And she’s like, what? And I’m like, just come to the hospital with me. She says, I’ve never done that. I’m like, oh my gosh, why not? Like come to the hospital with me. And you know, we brought a little bag of some snacks. She’s like, why are you doing that? I said because people in hospitals forget to eat all the time. And so she came to the waiting room and just sat there and I just will never forget. She’s like, I just want to thank you for bringing me like, I had no idea. And I think sometimes we need to just encourage each other like, hey, come do this with me. Like let’s do this together. Because sometimes outreach can feel very intimidating and not just to a homeless population, but like you mentioned at Walmart, starting a conversation with someone or handing out water bottles at the park or, you know, whatever that would be, but if we could just serve like, can you imagine if all of us individuals in churches, like got out of the church like, like, let’s take Jesus out of the church.
Ebonie Mukasa 25:14
Yes. It’s, I mean, come on, what are we doing?
Laurie Graham 25:18
Yeah. Yeah.
Ebonie Mukasa 25:20
I’m telling you, when you when you begin to move in this way, something unlocks in you, something a lot that you didn’t even know was, was hidden or behind a door. And there is no going back. There is no going back to your eyes being opened. There’s no going back from the response of gratitude that you received from someone, or someone breaking down in tears, because no one has spoken to them as a person. It just someone saying I haven’t, we had one gentleman one time, just broke down in tears with us, and we asked him, did he need prayer? He said, no, I want you to pray for my mother who I haven’t seen in XYZ years and I can’t go home. I don’t want to go home because I don’t want her to see me like this, I probably won’t see her again, but would you pray for her, her health? And we prayed for her and he was just so broke, like just, I can’t explain like a relief washed over him. I will never be the same after that. I will, I will never be the, I will never think that my prayers don’t matter that, that prayer doesn’t matter, that God doesn’t move through our prayers. That changed me personally, you see? So this outreach, when we talk about growing and maturing in Christ, our personal walk with Jesus, if you want more of Him, first of all, there’s more. The Scripture tells us there’s deeper depths, higher heights, right? So if you want more of him, I just say a give Him every, give Him access. Give Him access to you. Allow yourself to be used by Him, allow yourself to be His ambassador in the world, you know?
Laurie Graham 27:16
And today, like today, because people listening you know, when we talk about outreach, we make it this big thing. Like we have to plan ahead, or we’ve got to have supplies or, or I can’t do it because I’m too shy. But Ebonie can do it, because she’s so good at it, but I think what you said earlier, you said ask the Holy Spirit to show you needs. At, if we leave our house there are needs next door, on the street, at the store, at our workplace, at our schools, anywhere we go there are, we are surrounded by needs.
Ebonie Mukasa 27:24
Yes, you know, the Scripture tells us don’t grow weary in doing good. So we, when we think about ourselves, that one thing that we have to remember is that no matter what you do, hidden or seen, it will affect someone.
Laurie Graham 28:05
Yes, yes.
Ebonie Mukasa 28:06
Because we live connected. We live in community. My decisions affect someone else. The decisions I made right here in my house today, behind my four walls are going to affect someone else. So, you know, for the introvert, because people think that I’m an extrovert, I’m not. I am an introvert. I love being behind the scenes. I love being quiet. I have learned extrovert tendencies, and the Holy Spirit because I’ve said yes to Him, has taught me how to, it, when it’s about Jesus, I can be all, all there, now, if you ask me something else maybe not. So what what other kinds of outreaches can we do? You know you can, you know outreach, you could do things just to benefit your community? So why not be the person who walks down the street with your little stick with the little pointer on it and pick up the trash that on your street? That, I’m telling you, people think, you know, why? Because you are blessing someone else. You are benefiting your community. I’m not talking just, I mean, I think that we have given the world our identity when it comes to you know, doing good in the world and you know, social good they call it. I think we’ve allowed the world to take on that banner and, and make it seem like well, they’re doing it but that’s who we suppose to be.
Laurie Graham 29:32
It is. I totally agree.
Ebonie Mukasa 29:35
That’s our identity. That’s the legacy that Christ left for us. Go into the world and preach this good news, but we think the good news is just on, I mean the obviously the, the total package and is eternity with Christ, salvation, but then after all of that the living on this Earth, how the good news comes to how we live that out, there’s so much in between. There’s so much in between. So when you say us doing good, and you think, oh, well, that’s just volunteerism. Stop letting those words like, take away your identity. Labeling, oh, that’s just volunteerism, that’s not outreach.
Laurie Graham 30:25
That’s people serving people. That’s what God, that’s like, ah, it’s so much our call. I just believe it’s so much the light of Jesus. Like, when we go to visit somebody at a hospital, or a Care Center, talk to the other people passing by. Be kind to the people at the desk, you know. Start visiting the next door neighbor of this one who never seems to have visitors. Like, I think we’ve got to break out of our, you know, we’re doing life together with our church people, and start sharing that life and the energy, and the good stuff of Jesus with the people we pass, because I think Jesus would have done that, because He did do that.
Ebonie Mukasa 31:02
How about we just put the character of Christ in action?
Laurie Graham 31:05
Yeah.
Ebonie Mukasa 31:06
Can we just say it like that?
Laurie Graham 31:07
Yeah!
Ebonie Mukasa 31:07
Let’s let’s, let’s, let’s move away less even from the word outreach, right? Because we’ve got so many, you know, misconceptions about it and people use it in all sorts of stuff, and, and let’s just say that we’re going to live out the character of Christ. So we’re going to be kind, when we can, you know. We’re going to be gentle, we’re going to be faithful people. We’re going to be loyal. We’re going to show up. When we say yes, our yes means our yes, right? We’re going to be a blessing to other people. We’re going to, you know, I mean, we’re going to be forgiving and have long suffering. And let’s just get about doing that. If you can get about doing that, then, then now you are kind, and so now whatever, what, your life, through your life, kindness exudes. So that might be, you know, and I’m saying that can translate into communal work as well doing it as a community, doing it as a collective, as well as doing it as a, living it as an, as an individual.
Laurie Graham 32:14
Yeah, absolutely. For sure. You know, as we get close to kind of ending our time together for now, Ebonie, because you and I will talk again, but when I think of this conversation on outreach, like a few things coming to mind is just that shift that it doesn’t have to be a big thing. Oftentimes, just the connection, of connecting with somebody is so important, you know, asking God, you know, what, what needs are around me, opening ourselves up to that. Maybe serving the community to see what needs are out there, if you’re not sure where to start, and addressing the needs, addressing the needs that we walk by daily, addressing the needs that we see in our community, whether we’re working with a program with our church, or even just as individuals, like, I love what you said, like, you know, let’s start acting out the character of Christ. You know, that’s what He’s called us to do, right?
Ebonie Mukasa 33:08
Absolutely. I think it’s such a beautiful way to live, and, and it’s such a, I just look at it as a way that we don’t do it because of this, but you know, God’s word, He can’t go back on His word. He, He has promises for us when we live obediently to His word, right? And so, as you live this kind of life, you will have this kind of response in your life, right? So as you walk in kindness, and you live kindly do, I mean, you, when you, you’re going to have kindness return. We don’t look for it, but God is faithful. God is faithful. God is going to, now we don’t give and we expect every single thing in kind, that’s not how God does, but you know, God’s grace will abound even the more in your life, right? And so, I encourage a pastor or ministry leader who’s listening to this and, and outreach has become a burden, right? And why is it a burden? Because you’re not getting the numbers. What you expected in return for doing x, y, &z and, and I encourage them to pray and to trust God by releasing themselves from them. That’s not what God, that’s not what He’s put on you. You put that on yourself. He didn’t put that on you.
You got, we got enough that we got to carry in responsibility. We don’t need to be adding to it. I tell my son, don’t, don’t help the devil. He’s already pursuing, don’t, don’t, don’t help him, right? Don’t put more or yourself and it’,s it’s not necessary. You know, flow in the purpose of connecting the hearts of people to God letting people touch, feel, see Jesus, letting them hear Jesus through you, right? Using it as an opportunity to mature your congregation to mature them so that it’s, they become less self-focused, and more, more community-focused. You will see kindness erupting in your congregation. If there’s a lot of infighting and a lot of inbickering and all that, you know, when people begin to exercise this type of, you know, freedom that we have in Christ. You know, it changes you. It changes you, and so you are seeing people change. So I encourage to just, you know, liberate yourself and just serve freely.
Laurie Graham 35:57
I love it. Ebonie, thank you for starting this conversation, and I’m saying starting this because, you all who are listening, we really pray that you would continue this conversation. Like, take this podcast episode, share it with somebody, talk to somebody at your church about your view of outreach, about how maybe there’s a shift you’re feeling or about a need that you see. Like, as we live in community in our churches, these conversations are so important to unpack the way we’ve been thinking or the way we do think and just really inviting God into those conversations with others, so that we can kind of blow past this modern church mentality wherever we’ve gotten stuck in numbers and programs and, I don’t know, whatever we’re expecting out of churches instead of just living, living in the community that God’s called us to be. So Ebonie, thank you so much for being with us. If people want to connect with you, or find you, or chat with you how would they do that?
Ebonie Mukasa 36:53
You can visit our church website experiencechurchintl.org or you can visit my website just eboniemukasa. My name is E-B-O-N-I-E, not Y. E-B-O-N-I-E M-U-K-A-S-A.com.
Laurie Graham 37:12
Awesome. We will make sure to drop it in the notes. And as always, you all if you have found encouragement in this podcast, would you please leave a rating? Leave a five-star rating leave us a comment on the podcast. The more comments that are left in the ratings, it actually drives it up into the algorithms, you know how we all know how all the social media works, so that people can actually find our podcast. We have small churches everywhere as they get connected, they’re like where have you been? Like why haven’t I heard about you and so the more we can do that, the more we want to meet some needs because there are people struggling in small churches just all over the planet and our goal like is just a reach them all. So that’s what we’re about. So leave us a review on the podcast. We will drop your links in the show notes, Ebonie, so people can find you, and as always, you all, like this week, go be a light!