The past few years, I’ve assisted established churches in learning to engage in outreach the way new churches reach out to the community. Here’s a summary of the training.
Pastors starting new churches make outreach a priority for ministry.
Almost all pastors have three priorities: preaching, teaching and pastoral care. Pastors also find time for an area of special interest such as pastoral counseling or social justice or prayer. When I started as a church planter, the area of special interest was dictated for me. If I didn’t lead the congregation in reaching out the community, the new church would fail. Pastors of established churches can make leading the church in outreach a priority.
New churches engage every team, committee and board in outreach.
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They financially support community causes or international missions. The new churches I served lacked the people, time and funding to support specialized committees for outreach. We instead ensured that every team, committee or board engaged in outreach. Each program was required to appeal to both church members and unchurched community members. All leaders built bridges into the community.
Church plants equip members to live out their vocations.
I started ministry in an established church, I assumed members knew how to live out their vocations. In the mission congregation, God brought us new Christians or Christians who were very disconnected from church. They did not know how to pray or share Jesus with a neighbor, let alone lead a Bible study in their homes. We had to equip our members to live out their vocations. This resulted in new people coming to our church. Looking back, my assumption about the established church was incorrect. We should have done more to equip members to live out their vocations in the established church.
New churches and new church members regularly pray for unchurched