What is your most effective community outreach?
January 1, 2002
Most people equate community with neighborhood. This makes sense in the suburbs, but our congregation comes from all over. Last year we worshiped in four locations each week. The new paradigm defines community by where your people are, not your building. Plus, urban people live with the contradiction of a highly concentrated population that is highly disconnected and isolated. Effective community outreach, for us, is where we create community through outreach. A year ago, we went to Ensenada, Mexico, to upgrade living conditions in the barrios. About 170 adults, both believers and seekers, picked up trash and painted murals. In another project, about 40 of us went to Thailand to serve 500 overseas workers for ten days. In a 13-month period, over half of our adults were mobilized in a service project outside the U.S. These experiences not only build community within Mosaic, but draw those outside of Christ to faith through the power of biblical community. - Erwin McManus
Mosaic
Los Angeles, California
A friend once said, "If people learn where your restrooms are, they'll be back." We've resolved to make our entire facility a familiar home for the community. In the fall, we invite preschool children to our pumpkin patch. They sit among the pumpkins in a field adjacent to the church and listen to church members read stories. It's very popular. The schools have begun busing the children in. When the GMAC Bowl Game is played in Mobile, the church parking lot will be the start and end of a 5-kilometer run. Someday, our senior pastor dreams, we will build a community swimming pool. Any visible participation in community life advances our goal. At a busy intersection adjacent to our campus, the church opened a bookstore. When a man entered and ...
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