Top 10 Church Outreach Ideas For Your Community

Church outreach ideas are often stale.

The bake sale.

The parade booth.

The dinner.

These aren’t bad ideas per se.

But it's easy for churches to get stuck in the frustrating place of trying to fit popular strategies to their unique location and resources.

The truth is that you must first understand how to properly analyze your church’s unique makeup of resources, and then decide what outreach ideas are best for you.

In this article, we’re going to walk through what you need to generate, optimize, and perfect outreach ideas that are unique to your strengths and needs.

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Stop and Evaluate: A Simple 3-Step Guide to More Effective Church Outreach

Church outreach is all about connecting with your community. But before you dive into new events and programs, take a step back and assess your strategy. Is your outreach as effective as it could be?

Here’s a simple, three-step process to help your church grow and make a real impact.

Be Known as the Church That Cares

People are more likely to show up if they see your church as an active, caring presence in the community. If your outreach efforts aren’t making a noticeable impact, it may be time to rethink how you engage with your neighbors. Ask yourself:

• Are we meeting the real needs of our community?
• Do people outside the church know about our events and initiatives?
• Are we consistently involved in community activities, beyond Sunday services?

Your first goal should be to build a reputation as the church that genuinely cares. When you do, people will be drawn to what you're doing.

Invest in Marketing Your Outreach Efforts

Even the best outreach ideas won’t succeed if people don’t know about them. That’s where marketing comes in. You don’t need a big budget, but you do need a clear plan to spread the word.

Here are some simple ways to market your church outreach:

• Posters and Banners – Put up signs in local businesses and update the banners in front of your church.
• Radio Ads – Buy a small ad spot on a local radio station.
• Social Media – The most important and cost-effective tool! Regularly post about events and community involvement on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms.

To make your marketing work, church staff (or volunteers) need to handle three simple tasks:

1. Write the Message – Example: "Join us for movie night this Sunday, May 5th, at 7 PM! We’re watching Cars 3!"
2. Create the Ad – This could be a printed sign, a digital graphic, or even a simple social media post.
3. Share It – Hang posters, post on Facebook, and make sure people see it!

If you want more people to attend your events, you have to make sure they know about them.

Set a Clear Goal and a Timeline

If you don’t have a goal, you won’t know if your outreach is successful. Setting a specific, measurable goal will give you direction and motivation.

Here’s an example: Actor Jim Carrey once wrote himself a check for $10 million, dated for Thanksgiving 1995. At the time, he was struggling. But by the time that date arrived, he had landed his breakout role in Dumb & Dumber—and earned exactly $10 million.

While writing something down won’t magically make it happen, having a clear goal with a deadline helps you stay focused and strategic.

What’s your church’s outreach goal?

• Do you want 10 new members by the end of the year?
• Do you want 50 more people attending weekly services?

Write down your goal, share it with your church leadership, and develop a strategy to achieve it. Then, communicate that goal with your congregation so everyone is working toward the same mission.

Don’t leave your church’s growth up to chance—be intentional, be strategic, and watch your outreach make a real difference.

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Assets for Outreach

Assets for outreach are as varied as the churches that exist. Some have lots of land while others have chapels, office space, a family life center with a gym, and maybe even a building solely for youth and students.

Survey the list below to discover what are your church’s greatest assets before you commit to any outreach ideas. When you understand your asset strengths you can decide how to leverage them to meet your goal. Here is a list of the biggest assets that a church has in place to serve its community:

Land

Land can be an asset in three ways — its size, terrain, and location.

If you have a large amount of land with smooth and level terrain, you can leverage that to host sporting events.

If you have a lot of land, and it has rugged or forested terrain that isn’t good for sports, you can host other events such as 4-wheeling, paintball, and camping.

If you have a well-located church in the city, you can leverage that to make a public presence for downtown events such as parades, marathons, walks to raise money for charity.

A big lot means you should seek to maximize events that require a lot of space.

A great location means you should seek to serve at the cross-section of ongoing events.

Facilities

Your church facilities can be an asset in at least two ways — its spaciousness, its features, and its technology.

A church with a lot of space, such as a gym, can host indoor sports during the winter.

A church with unique features such as basketball hoops, or sectioned rooms can become a center for many community events such as winter sports, or addiction groups such as AA and Al-Anon. Most churches can leverage their stage as a location to host a local theater group.

A church with technology can become a hub for creators — during work hours, the church could convert high tech spaces into a co-working space for young professionals. Or, if a church has cooking technology—such as an industrial kitchen—it could partner with a local restaurant to host a monthly cookout or cooking classes hosted in the church’s kitchen.

Time and talent

Don’t overlook members with free time and valuable skills.

As a church, you can proactively organize ways to channel this free time into something productive and inviting for the community based on the strengths and the skills of the volunteers.

Remember—people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Asking for time isn’t always a burden. For many, the opportunity to serve is itself a gift.

Child safety

One of the greatest assets a church can offer the community is child safety.

As you should be coordinating with your local police department to run appropriate background checks for volunteers and run extensive childcare training for volunteers, the church has the opportunity to become a safe and trusted place for parents in its community. A church management software can help you with this task.

This can be leveraged in several ways—for example, as a babysitting ministry (more below) or a safe place for youth to attend events in a warm and welcoming environment.

A diaconal fund

A diaconal fund is a special pool of money that a church sets aside to help people in need. Think of it like an emergency fund, but for the church to use in serving others.

Churches use this fund to help struggling families with things like:

• Paying for groceries
• Covering rent or utility bills
• Helping someone get medical care
• Supporting church members or community members during tough times

The name "diaconal" comes from the word deacon, which refers to church leaders who are often responsible for serving and caring for people.

Churches collect money for the diaconal fund through offerings, donations, or a specific budget set by the church leadership. The funds are then distributed as needed to provide real, practical help to those facing hardship.

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10 Categories of Outreach Ideas

Most stock outreach ideas like “host a meal!” aren’t helpful, because it’s just a random idea—it doesn’t take into account the specific nature and makeup of your church.

Hosting a meal might be a great idea if you have people with the time and talent, and a building with the facilities to make it an enjoyable and interesting event.

Nevertheless, you should accurately understand your assets and weaknesses (above) and try to maximize your weaknesses by manifesting them in the form of the following kinds of events, which have an infinite number of applications.

Here are 10 great ideas for Christian church activities for your members as a way to bring your community together.

Childcare

For example, you could host a “babysitting night” for the church so that couples in your church can go out on a date.

When you market this event, flaunt how excellent are your childcare services.

If your church uses a software like Tithe.ly ChMS, you can showcase that participants will be able to receive regular push notifications updating them on the status of their child.

Make this night open to others in the community.

If people can trust your church with their kids, they are far more likely to attend a service and eventually become giving members.

Fundraising for a local cause

Search local charity walks/runs and organize to send a group of church members to participate in the fundraiser.

Fundraisers really appreciate this, and this will establish a very positive relationship with a local business such as a hospital or research center.

More than that, other businesses and groups will see your church well-represented at this event, which serves as free advertising to business leaders in your community.

This supplies your church with a social cachet so that if you ever ask them to participate in a charity event of your own (e.g., a mission trip fundraiser), they will be far more likely to do so.

Mental health education

Suicide is at an all-time high in the United States.

Most public institutions are not equipped to deal with these issues.

The church is God’s means of sharing the hope-giving gospel of Jesus Christ to the hopeless. The Apostle Paul writes: “God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

Fulfill your calling as the church by educating and helping those about those enduring the dark stress of a mental illness.

More than this, if you have members who are equipped and impassioned to do this sort of work, you could be one of the few churches that has a ministry space on Sunday specifically for the mentally disabled.

Financial health classes

Host bi-annual classes on financial health and invite the local community.

Some good classes that provide full DVD classes, including books and workbooks, are:

• Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University
• Crown Financial’s Personal Finance class
  

Community gathering

People are lonely.

The New York Times recently reported that loneliness is one of the biggest problems in 21st Century America.

Solve this with community get-togethers hosted at your church.

This can include small groups, meals, or a movie night.

Give people in your community opportunities to interpersonally connect.

Don’t end it with a pitch to come to church.

Make the social connection the pitch for why they should come to your church.

Relational evangelism and discipleship is an indispensable tool and an undeniably attractive element in any church’s growth strategy.

Community service

Find local mercy ministries in your area, mobilize a group, and show up weekly.

Serve at the homeless shelter.

Partner with other churches in local ministry trips.

Find needs in your community and strategize how you can meet that need as well as possible.

Possibly collect donations of school supplies for the upcoming school year.

Ask your local town supervisor or mayor how your church could best help the community become a better, more beautiful, well-integrated community of people.

Prayer ministry

People often need prayer and don’t know how to ask for it.

Christians often feel embarrassed to share their faith because they feel like it’s an imposition.

But to many unbelieving people, prayer is a fresh remembrance that God really does exist and helps those who ask (Luke 18:1-8).

Street evangelism

This church outreach strategy is often reserved for churches with an ideal urban location, rather than a rural church in a small town that would have to create a mobile cohort in order to do street evangelism.

Partner with local, like-minded organizations

This is one of the best church outreach ideas for those on a budget.

Find your local crisis pregnancy center and ask them how you can support. The beauty of these partnerships is that they are already putting on events. You get to do outreach as a church without taking on the difficult responsibility of event planning.

Reach out to your local Boy Scout and Girl Scout regional managers and ask if there is a troop in need of facilities.

Find ways that your church can participate as outreach instead of sponsoring every event in-house.

On-site coffee shop

An on-site coffee shop is a church outreach idea that many churches can offer their communities at a low maintenance cost.

Offer fast wifi and good coffee near the windows and you’ll draw lots of youth—especially over the summer.

Your up-front cost doesn’t have to be more than $500 if you already have kitchen facilities.

All you need are a good coffee machine, a blender for frapps and smoothies, a refrigerator, and signage.

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Over to you

If you want a super simple rule for all your outreach, remember this:

Great ideas add value to people’s lives.

Don’t lead with an ask.

Don’t begin a relationship with a marriage proposal.

Give valuable things to your community.

Listen — find out what your community wants, needs, and would enjoy.

And most importantly, use Tithe.ly ChMS to manage your outreach.

This is an all-inclusive church management software that allows you to send push notifications, manage groups, and schedule church events that notify just the right people.

Otherwise, all your work will be relegated to the black hole of Google Docs and Gmail threads.

If you want to do effective outreach, get Tithe.ly ChMS.

Tithe.ly ChMS even lets you turn any computer or tablet into a check-in kiosk so that you can capture visitor information and manage guest registrations.

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by neglecting this simple and affordable solution to the heavy administrative task of outreach.

You’re called to outreach as a church, so do it excellently and simply with Tithe.ly ChMS.

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Final Thoughts

Before launching another outreach event, take the time to analyze your approach. Make sure your church is known for caring, market your events effectively, and set a clear goal with a deadline. With a little strategy, your outreach efforts will be much more successful—and your church will grow in both numbers and impact.