The Church Answers Podcast
Three Powerful Relational Connections for Churches
(upbeat music) - I have thoroughly enjoyed this three-part series where we're letting upward be the sponsor. We're honored to have them here. And we're talking about ways to reach people, reach them in the community. We've talked about a lot of what upward does through their sports ministry. The number one sports ministry in the world for local churches. So I love what they're doing. I love the fact that we have this ministry partnership. But we've given you a lot of other insights as well. And we're going to continue with one more episode in the upward special series. And we're going to continue talking about how to reach people in the community in unique ways. Let me say a word about upward. You've heard me mention it. If you listened or watched the previous two episodes, we absolutely love upward. They're a great ministry partner. They help us to tell our churches about effective ways to reach community, including the community. So it's just a unique concept. They can do so much for your church. It's a way to reach the community. You can start your own sports league. You're on sports team. The world's largest Christian youth sports organization, upward, and they are delighted to offer you a $500 grant call quickly, connect quickly, email quickly for your 2024 sports startup grant. So this is an opportunity, not only to have an incredibly effective ministry in your community, but also to get it highly affordable with the sports grant. And look, don't forget, by the time you are listening to this, it'll be around summertime when you're listening to this, you need to start planning for your winter league. You need to be contacting upward right now. And they'll talk to you about how they can come into your church and turn your gym into a sports league. If you don't have a gym, turn your parking lot into a sports league. If you don't like it, parking lot can turn it into a field into a sports, there are just many, many possibilities. And now you've got this opportunity for the $500 grant. Upward is a great partner. We are honored that they've come alongside church answers. And I've got to tell you when our pastors in their churches link up with upward, I think the response rate of positive responses is 100%. I would have to ask all of my team that, but I've never heard anybody say, "I wish I hadn't done that." 100%, you want something that is great for your church, go to upward. Now we're going to talk about three powerful relational connections for your church. This three-part series that upward has sponsored has been primarily about ways to reach people that you have maybe not considered before. And we've gone through a great list of those and we've mentioned upward several points in here, but I want to talk about some really relational ways where you connect with people on a hard basis immediately when you do this. One is called the porch ministry. I've heard it called different names at churches, but basically it is this. One of the most dangerous areas for people who have homes, whether rented or owned, one of the more dangerous areas is the porch itself, that place leading to it from the front door where they're always going in and out. And many of the homes are in disrepair, not in good shape. And one church I know of, there are many began to hear of people falling because they had porches that were falling apart or they had boards that were sticking up or these supports that were not adequate. And so they would send people into these homes with permission of course and said, we're here to get your porch into great shape. To my knowledge, no one has ever declined them to do so. They know how important it is and it is a safety issue, but also it's an aesthetic issue. I know another church that does that and then also does landscaping for the home while they're there, modest of course, mowing few flowers, few bushes. But again, it just grabs the hearts of people. It says, we are here for you. We are here to serve you. We believe the gospel is all about service. So whether there is a porch ministry, a landscaping ministry, mowing the lawn, which many older adults just are unable to do at their point in life, whatever it is, this is a relational connection that you and your church members can have. I call it the porch ministry. On a number of occasions, secondly, we have mentioned the single parent connection. And here's basically what we're saying is that most churches do not realize how many single parents there are in the community. I cannot think of a time when we've done demographic studies for our church where we have come away where they said, oh, I would have guessed that. Many times we get a question from church leaders, how do you reach young people? Well, tell you what, if you reach single parents, guess what you're gonna be doing? You go, they're single parents because why? They have children that they're raising on their own. And usually the single parent, the mom or the dad, more times the mom than the dad, usually is the one that is reached, but both of them can be reached. And you're reaching that parent, you're reaching that child or children. I know one church that just brought the entire age of the church down because some of their senior adults were willing to minister and to walk alongside, started with Bible studies and then he expanded where older adults were actually mentoring single moms. And you can come up with something, but find out, just find out how many single parents are in your community. Get, I know your community report. That is a wealth of information that finding the marital status and how many single parents are in your community is just one part of it. Find that out and decide what kind of ministry you have. These parents that hardly ever get a break, many of them just go out for a while, many of them don't have the funds to pay for a babysitter, not all of them are in poverty, I don't mean to imply that, but I'm just meaning to say there are a number of them that would appreciate the help in any way. Think of the ways that you can best help a single parent and see what can happen with that relational connection in your church. By the way, you wanna find out how to best help a single parent? Ask the single parents. If you haven't been in your church, ask them. They'll know, they won't need any type of old guy on church answers to tell them how, they will let you know, okay? Single parent connection, porch ministry. We have also mentioned thirdly, and this is the third of the three. We've also mentioned getting to know families through sports. If you have not listened to the previous two podcasts in this series, the Upward Special Series, go back and listen to them. Make certain that you focus upon how sports ministries can be used to reach people instead of whining that sports are taking away our members on Sundays and on travel leagues. Sports ministries are incredible connection ways and when I was a pastor in St. Petersburg, Florida, we decided to join the community sports softball league. And at that time, if I recall correctly, we just had two men's team. Again, this was a while back, probably would have had a women's team or even a co-ed team these days, but we had two men's team. And we really only had enough for one team, one softball team, but that's the way I wanted it when I said enough, enough members who volunteered. And again, I don't remember the exact number, but I think it's around 15 people that were on the team. And we said, look, half of these, seven or eight of these people have to come from outside our church. The rest are gonna be our church members. So we made the sports teams themselves community connected, relational connected, evangelistically connected. And in doing so, obviously, those men got to know one another and we had a number of people come to Christ through sports. Think it through, go back and listen or watch on YouTube video. By the way, if you're watching on YouTube, would you subscribe to the church answers channel? Would you give us a good thumbs up and give us a subscription? And by the way, since I'm asking, whether you who are listening on your favorite podcast, give us a rating and review that just keeps people coming to this for this free ministry. So thank you for doing that. So those are three things, porch ministry, single parent connection, getting to know families through church. Now it's bonus time. Not only three, I'm gonna give you one more. Taking care of the car. This may have something to do with single parent ministries where they either don't have the funds or they know how to service their own car to change the wall or whatever the case may be. If you have people in your church that can do that and you offer a community car care ministry, it can have a great impact. So that's my bonus. I don't know enough about cars to begin to tell you all the details, but I know a lot of folks do. A lot of men and women have that knowledge and you can make that a regular ministry of your church that you offer. Say once a month, once every two months and you'll see a great response from the community if you can offer some type of auto care servicing for those in the community. What are we trying to do? We're trying to connect the church and Christians to the community. Through ways that are comfortable and common in the community. So I urge you to go back and listen or watch all three of these episodes, these special upward episodes and come up with some things for your church. You really don't need to be asking the question, how do we do it? You just need to be asking the question, which one do we do? There are many opportunities there. And if you just go through this 30, 45 minutes of three podcasts that I've just provided for you, I think you're gonna find a lot of ways. So my recommendation is take these three podcasts, re-watch them, re-listen to them with others in your church and come up with some ideas for your church to reach your community with the gospel of Christ. Thank you upward for being an incredible sponsor of this and a very natural sponsor for the topic. That's why I'm glad they came alongside us for this series of podcasts. Thank you, the viewer at YouTube, the listener on your podcasting out. And as always, we're here at church answers to try to help the local church to partner with her in making a difference for the gospel. See you later. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)