Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Missonal Menu Brainstorm

I'm also working on some ideas on how to help our campus ministry and church become more missional. I've found some great books, videos, websites, etc. But would like some practical ideas on ways to implement it into our group. Here are some ideas that I've stolen so far. Do you guys have other suggestions or ideas? Thanks!

Missional Menu of Ideas
Prayer Walking in Neighborhoods & 3rd Places in Montgomery
· Prayer walking is praying on-sight with in-sight. When you walk through a neighborhood, community, or campus you begin to get a feel of who lives there, what their needs are, where God is already moving, and develop are heart for the people.

· 3rd Place – is a sociology term to describe where people hang out. 1st place is their home. 2nd place is work. 3rd place where people spend there time outside of home and work. It’s where people interact and casually build relationships. Examples of 3rd places are: Starbuks, Books-A-Million, Barnes And Noble, bars, clubs, gyms, etc.

· See www.pray4chicago.com or www.pray4montgomery.com


Project Montgomery – Church wide community service day. Examples of service would be Adulam House, Compassion 21, Common Ground, Friendship Kitchen, Salvation Army, Agape, Hospice, Montgomery Public Schools, Extreme Home Makeovers, Habitat for Humanity, Special Olympics, Family Sunshine Center, etc. The Montgomery Campus Ministries did a similar activity last fall using 300 students in ministry all over town.
Timeline for Project Montgomery
· Promo started 2 weeks out

· Signup the week of (which required a food donation to sign up – some service opportunities were numbers sensitive, in other words there were limits on how many people could attend)

· Coffee House the night before to benefit \ highlight Agape

· Saturday Service Projects

Saturday Evening Devo \ Cookout \ Recap \ Slide Show \ Prayer

Iff we were to decide to do something like this it would be good to for the elders to support this by allowing a separate offering, or some form of giving go toward this project.You can see more www.projectmontgomery.com

Auction – Ask members and business to donate goods \ services to be auctioned off. Throw this out to the church and let them be the ones to come up with things to be auctioned off. Allow online bidding.
Examples: 2 nights at a condo in Gulf Shores, free haircut, babysitting, house cleaning, date night kit, photography, etc.
Life Group Contribution – track giving for two life groups over a three-month period. At the end of each month return 50% of groups contribution with the stipulation that it be used for Kingdom work. I know of a church that did this. Their contribution actually went up. When individuals are able to see where the money is going they are more likely to give. They chose 50% because we are to “love our neighbors as our self…so we should spend as much money on our community as we do ourselves.”

Community Garden(s) – most of the time these are located in neighborhoods but there are also churches growing gardens. For example, one church sits on 22 acres and grows over 20,000 lbs of produce for the poor in their community. Compassion 21(inner city ministry) currently purchases $2800 worth of fresh vegetables each month for the poor in Montgomery. Our church currently sits on 18 acres. Ten of which are vacant pastureland.

Montgomery Area Adoption Needs – Contact DHR & Agape to find out how many children are currently in need of a family. Present this need to the church body as a challenge to alleviate the need for Montgomery County. I have heard of a couple of churches who have done this and completely alleviated the adoption need in their community. One church body took nearly 100 children into their homes.

Incarnational Living – There are several churches who’ve helped members move into impoverished neighborhoods to live as “salt” & “light.” Many join in with local after school care programs, tutoring, or coaching. We are currently looking into this in Chisholm but have hit a roadblock. We will need to train members how to do this. Some useful resources are some books by Hugh Halter & Matt Smay called “The Tangible Kingdom”, “The Tangible Kingdom Primer”, and a book called “AND: they Gathered AND Scattered.” Also, "The Brown House" ministry is Tuscaloosa is a great resource!
But we must keep in mind Chisholm is only one place to do this. We need to be creative on how to communicate the gospel in every community: rich or poor. What does Incarnational Living look like in an affluent neighborhood? What does it look like on campus? Thoughts???? Ideas????

This list of ideas has been copiled by some 20 people who have been added to a Google Wave Tim Catchim started. The purpose of the wave is to brainstorm on creative ideas to build relationships in your neighborhood. I am listing them here for your enjoyment. There have been a lot of really cool contributions to this list by some very thoughtful folks.

Host a National Night Out
Facilitate a neighborhood yard sale
Pass out 9 volt batteries for people to replace in their smoke detector
Host a back yard theater and show a movie
Prayer Walk your neighborhood at least twice a month
Drop off a nice bottle of wine to your neighbor with a note "Love to get to know you guys sometime. Call and well enjoy this bottle together." (ripped from Hugh Halter in Tangible Kingdom)
Pass out fliers offering free gardening or landscaping help
Organize a play station/X Box/Wii tournament for the kids in the neighborhood. (If someone has the Beatles Rock Band kit you can even get the adults to play on that!)
Assemble "doggie bags" with items that homeless people need like food and hygiene products and pass out to those in your community as the need arises or you encounter them.
Shoot a video of your neighbors responding to the questions "What things do you like about this neighborhood?" and "What things would you like to change in the neighborhood?"
During the Christmas season, facilitate a Christmas carolling event, inviting your neighbors to participate with hot chocolate and cider at the end.
Host a front yard/backyard concert with a bring your own meat for the grill.
Bake some chocolate chip cookies and take them next door....still warm and chewy.
Take your office to the nearest coffee shop you can find.
Form a Neighborhood Watch group and volunteer to be the block captain.
Ask your neighbors if they would like you to stop by once a month to pick up items they may want to give to the local food shelf. Used shoes can also be collected and sent to this organization that has many local drop-off sites nationally:http://www.soles4souls.org/
Create a "spiritual map" "spiritual map" of your city - and invite other missions-minded people in a process of 1- Discover, 2- Inspiration and 3- Incarnation.
Host a party on your front yard during Halloween and serve "Hallo-weeners" (hot dogs) to all who stop by.
Host a ground hog day party on your front yard. Fix different kinds of soup for folks to try out.
Invite Neighbors to play flag football or other recreational sport in neighborhood
If you would like to contribute to the list of ideas, leave a comment and I will add it to the final list. I plan to get the word out about this list after the summer is over. Hopefully it will be helpful to some folks who are wanting to engage their local neighborhood in a meaningful way.

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