How Scrappy
Churches
Use Seasonal
Opportunities
for Outreach
BY THOM RAINER
I recently spoke to a pastor whose
church is definitely a scrappy church.
Its turnaround from decline to health
is remarkable. He intuitively knew
the church had to have an ongoing
outward focus. He led the church to a
basic but effective sustained outward
focus. His church has ten adult Bible
study classes. He asked each group to
get creative and find ways to connect
with the community and invite people
to church on an ongoing basis.
The pastor’s creativity led him to ask
each of the ten groups to “adopt” one
of ten months. Each group is now
responsible for creatively inviting
people to church for one month each.
For now, they have no groups to cover
July and November, but they have the
other ten months covered.
“It has been amazing,” the pastor
told us. “I am not burdened with the
responsibility of thinking how we can
reach the community and invite folks.
Instead, I unleash our members to
come up with their own ways to do it.
6 • Solutions
At the end of each of those ten months,
I share from the pulpit what the class
did for that month. It really has ignited
our church, and it hasn’t been a burden
on any one person or group.”
We asked the pastor how long this
ministry has been in place. “We are
halfway through our third year,” he
responded. “Some of the classes have
repeated their outreach from previous
years because they like it so much.
Others have changed or tweaked theirs.
They are all doing well.”
The pastor had a twinkle in his eye as
he continued. “I knew this ministry was
doing well when I went into the grocery
store a couple of months ago. The
cashier said, ‘Oh, you’re the pastor of
the inviting church.’ That was music to
my ears. We now have a reputation of
being the church that opens our doors
and invites people.”
He had one more point he wanted to
make. “You know, there is a large church
just four blocks from our church,” he