Does your Church want to connect with its local community?

I am going to share with you an easy program that is a great way to connect with the local neighbors around your church building. It is as good, if not better than a VBS program. It is also a great way to add a new spiritual dimension to your current membership. When you first look at it, it may at first seem a little tough. I introduced it to a church with a weekly membership of around 100 people. Once we implemented it, everyone involved shared how much they enjoyed it. We saw significant improvement with our relationship with our neighbors. VBS attendance grew beyond members, and we had many visitors the next year. The cost was pretty small except for time. This is what we did.

1. Created nice prayer cards with a stamp attached
2. Visited every house and delivered a prayer card
3. Pray for the Lord to make the cards fruitful.
4. Pray over every card New Years Eve from 6:00 PM - 12:01 AM

1) You can make beautiful cards at VistaPrint.com for next to nothing. Make sure the front is something that stands out, or maybe a picture of the Church Building with all the members smiling outside. The back should be self addressed and stamped with full postage.

2) Grab your ministry teams together a few weeks before you canvas the neighborhood. Pray corporately or actual just schedule a prayer walk through the neighborhood. Once this is done, visit each house in your area. Make it an event, bring puppets, clowns, band. What ever it takes to make an impact and get noticed. Knock on every door, let the people who answer know that your church is planning a special prayer service for New Years. That you are going out into the neighborhood to see if any one has needs they would like to have prayers for. If they say they do, write down on the card their actual prayer need, verbatim, without judgment. There may be some requests that normally you would not want to pray over. The request may illuminate their more pressing need. During the service, you will just pray that God's Will is manifested in their life. If no one is home, leave the card with a note tealling the resident about the prayer request cards. Do not invite people to the service. In their hearts and mind, their assumption is that you are there to get new members. In YOUR heart, you should be there to PRAY and meet NEEDS. Not inviting them to visit your church will be a more powerful witness. Just make sure your heart is clean. Over time you will notice many may just show up over the next year.

 3) When the ministry teams get back, pray that the Lord of the Harvest plans the seed deep, sends someone to water the seeds, and prepares the harvest.

4) Our service would start at 8:00 PM and go until a few minutes after midnight. To get the most out of the service have light snacks, coffee, tea in the fellowship hall or church basement. Maybe have a family friendly movie going. A few weeks before New Years, prepare a sign up sheet. Make sure a leader or mature Christian is scheduled a s a leader. They will guide the prayer for their hour. Hopefully most people in your church will sign up. Let everyone know before or after their time that there will be fellowship before and after.