Over the past few weeks, my wife and I have been involved in a lot of opportunities to do outreach in Swampscott and Marblehead. We are planting a church in Swampscott (RRCC) and meanwhile, we are still members of a church in Marblehead (GCC) that is becoming more outward-focused.

In this post, I want to share a few things we have been doing and offer some bullet point lessons we’ve learned about how to make events like these a success for our community.

High Seas VBS

Grace Community Church has been hosting a Vacation Bible School in Marblehead for years. We can only host about 100 kids due to space limitations. This is such a popular event in our community that registration is closed within weeks. My wife led the kindergarten class and this was her first VBS experience. Here are a few thoughts about how to make VBS a successful outreach opportunity:

1. Go bananas with the decorations! I once led a VBS that had a submarine theme. So, we created a huge submarine facade that covered the entire front entrance to the church! This took a huge volunteer commitment, but the kids loved entering the church through a port hole.
2. Train leaders early and often. If leaders can’t commit to 3 out of 4 training sessions (for example), they probably shouldn’t volunteer for such an important event.
3. VBS should be a momentum builder. How is it tied into a larger, year-long outreach strategy in the church? What is the follow up process? How about creating a miniature VBS every Sunday morning during regular worship services.

International Barbecue

A member of GCC has been hosting a barbecue for international students for years now. This year, there were close to 75 students and their families from places such as Colombia, Korea, China, Japan, and Morocco. The internationals spend the day in Marblehead enjoying the Festival of Arts, then they arrive at the Steadman’s home by 4pm. We eat around 5pm and then have a program at about 6pm with some music and a few testimonies. All of this is followed by dessert. People from our church in Marblehead bring food and interact with the internationals. Here are a few thoughts about this ministry:

1. Every church near a college campus should have some sort of outreach to students and their families – even more important in a place like Boston where there are students from about 145 nations studying in Boston area schools.
2. Ongoing relationships are easy to form with international students and their families through English conversation, TOEFL preparation, and simply inviting them into your home. They are longing for these sorts of interactions with people.
3. Again, is there a larger strategy to this sort of ministry? How can a ministry such as this get support from the Body? Are leaders being developed to help with the ministry? Are there opportunities for internationals to be welcomed into the Body?

Strawberry Festival

We had a team of students help us pass out gallons of strawberry lemonade at the annual Strawberry Festival in Swampscott. We included a small flyer that gave our website and phone number and some information about an upcoming Bible study series.

1. Taking advantage of town events shows an investment in the community. In addition to handing out lemonade, it would be even better if we stayed late and helped clean up.
2. Having t-shirts for our church for this event would have been extremely helpful. We thought about it in plenty of time but just didn’t have the budget for it this year.
3. I think in the future I would prefer to just give the gift and not advertise for anything. That’s the difference between servant evangelism and marketing. Servant evangelism might include a note saying, “A gift from Red Rock Community Church”. Marketing says, “this gift is so that you will think more favorably about what we want you to do.” Even still, it was a fun time and a lot of people were very appreciative (though some wished the lemonade was spiked…maybe next year…kidding!).

Fourth of July Parade

Okay, so this event was awesome! Every year in Marblehead there is a parade for the children on the Fourth of July. This year it happened to fall on a Sunday and the parade was at 10am. Of course, we could’ve complained and asked the organizers to move the event to a more amenable time (how dare they organize something when everyone is supposed to be in church, right?) However, we decided to simply have a shorter worship service at 8:45 (instead of 9:30) and then go and participate in the parade! We had 20 children and 18 adults marching in the parade and we had about 15 more volunteers giving out water at three separate “watering holes”. We all wore matching t-shirts, decorated bikes with red, white, and blue, played music from our VBS from the week before, and even had a float that someone made to look just like our church!

1. We were able to tie this event in with our 200th anniversary year celebration. Our theme this year is “Excited about Grace” so we carried our banner and we had homemade signs saying Excited about… children, God’s love, families, the Bible, etc.
2. We walked in the parade under the “historic” category (other categories were current events, fun, etc.). This made our reason for walking relevant and it wasn’t forced. Celebrating 200 years in Marblehead and walking in the “historic” category just made sense.
3. We even won a cash prize of $50! We’re still trying to figure out the reason, but the point is, people noticed us! A lot of people along the parade route had big smiles on their faces and kids from VBS held the week before recognized the music we were playing.
4. As noted before, being a part of your town’s events shows a commitment to the town and raises the awareness of your church’s activity in the community.

Well, those are just a few of the opportunities we had to do servant evangelism, children’s events, and making connections with international students. This kind of stuff is fun! Really there are two kinds of people in a church, suckers and servants. You are a “sucker” if you see the church as a group of people who exist to serve you! If that describes your perspective then you are sucking the life out of your church (though there may be times in your life when you need more than you can give, but that’s the exception not the rule).

On the other hand, a servant is someone who gets involved in reaching out to the community through events like the ones listed above. Church isn’t a place to get but to give. It isn’t a place to be served but to serve. Plus, it’s simple and fun. The parade took very little commitment and lots of smiles. Kids had a lot of fun participating. VBS took much more commitment but it also has a huge impact in the community. Regardless of the opportunity, just make sure you are doing something to show love to your neighbors!