Many years back, the church I was pastoring had a "lets talk about outreach" approach....kind of like the ready aim...ready aim....but never firing scenario. This was not surprising since we were a brand new church start. One day I decided that I had enough of this routine. I went to the grocery store bought drinks, sandwich "fixins" (we are in the south), and some misc. giveaways.
I got to the church on Wednesday and anounced that instead of a Bible study we were going out of the church and feed people who are hungry. I sent a few people to the kitchen to make sandwiches, and few other to pack the coolers for the drinks etc...
My associate pastor and I both had vans so we loaded two teams with the instructions of "see a need - fill a need". My group had a great time! The young people were into it and only complained when it was timew to go back to the church. The other group unfortunately didnt have a good time....at all. In fact, they couldnet find anyone to help. They went to our donwtown area - a typical hangout for the homeless. It turns out that on Wed. nights, they go to the shelter or some local churches instead of hanging out. Needless to say, that group was frustrated.
We went back to the church and debriefed. Although the other team was bummed out, after taking pics of the group leaving and then hearing stories from the entire group, we laughed at the lessons learned and praised God for the seeds he had sown - both in us as well as those whose path we crossed that night.
My associate pastor is now the senior pastor of that church and they are truly an outward focused group. I believe that night was the catalyst that started the outreach mindset even though it was less then picture perfect.
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