Community Outreach helps churches and believers love their neighbors with practical compassion and gospel clarity. Explore Bible-based articles on serving local needs, building relationships, partnering with community organizations, and creating outreach ministries that are sustainable and effective. You’ll find guidance on evangelism, mercy ministry, hospitality, and engaging your city with wisdom—so outreach is more than an event and becomes a way of life. Whether your church is starting new initiatives or strengthening existing ones, these resources equip you to serve your community in Jesus’ name.
February 9, 2022
For the past two months, since a tornado struck its town on Dec. 10, Bowling Green (Ky.) Christian Church has been helping its community with the able assistance of IDES.
December 15, 2021
Over the past year and a half, residents from the Christian Village at Mason, Ohio—a senior living community—have expressed their gratitude to Cincinnati healthcare workers by sending more than 600 handmade cards. Plus news briefs from ICOM, Forest Grove Christian Church, and more.
November 17, 2021
People driving past CrossCity Christian Church in Fresno, Calif., saw a rather incredible sight Saturday—about 90,000 pairs of new socks hanging on 7.4 miles of clothesline.
November 1, 2021
By Kent E. Fillinger Some churches create “holy huddles” that are internally focused and address only the needs of their own members. Their mantra could be, “Us four, no more, close the door!” Other churches are more externally focused and spend time, energy, and resources serving their local communities and meeting practical needs. Church leaders should periodically ask, “If our church were to close today, would our community realize it and miss us?” Answering that question will help a church assess where they fall on the internally focused versus externally focused spectrum. Local Community Involvement Our annual church survey for
September 15, 2021
Overlake Christian Church's Safe Parking Ministry—for people who don't have homes but do have cars—has been helping with the spiritual and material needs of this segment of the homeless population since 2015.
August 24, 2021
Johnson University Professor of New Testament Dr. Heather Gorman went “Over the Edge” Saturday—rappelling down a 16-story building—to help raise money for The Restoration House of East Tennessee. TRH was started by JU grads Daniel and Mandy Watson.
August 18, 2021
Church members want to help when a weather-related disaster occurs, but they often don’t know what to do. To best show Jesus’ hands and heart in the wake of such occurrences, members need to know how to prepare for and respond to weather emergencies.
July 13, 2021
The garden outreach at Canyon Springs Christian Church, Middleton, Idaho, began in the spring of 2018 and provides food to people in need through food banks and other nonprofits in the area.
June 2, 2021
Wayne Kent of First Christian Church, Decatur, Ill., and Greg Taylor of Second Church of Christ, Danville, Ill., host talk radio shows that are reaching their communities. Kent's show has been on the air for 16 years.
April 7, 2021
New Hope Christian Church, Whitestown, Ind., donated property to Isaiah 117 so the organization can build a home “where removed children can wait in comfort to be picked up by their foster families.”
April 6, 2021
Every Tuesday, women in His Quilters of Oakwood Christian Church (Enid, Okla.) gather to make quilts to give away, and almost nothing will interrupt them. “We don’t go to the dentist, to the doctor, anywhere on Tuesday, unless it’s an emergency,” says Diane Goodwin.
March 17, 2021
Gateway Christian Church in Saint Albans, W.Va., is not turning a blind eye to the drug problem in its community. The church purchased a home near its campus and converted it into a recovery house for men emerging from substance abuse addictions.
January 24, 2021
By Jim Nieman A small church in a town of fewer than 2,000 in west-central Oregon is playing an outsized role in helping its region recover from wildfires that swept through large swaths of the Pacific Northwest last summer and fall. Mill City (Ore.) Christian Church initially helped by establishing a disaster relief store, but for the past few months it has partnered with a church from Washington state, along with area business owners and individuals, to help clear some of the more than 300 homes destroyed in the area. “I had spent a year asking God to use me
January 1, 2021
When the Pandemic Hit, Our Leaders Went to Work to Discover the Best Ways for Us to Serve Our Community . . . One of our pastors, while addressing the coaching staff at a local college last year, described Ekklesia Christian Church as opportunists. Any time God cracks open a door, even slightly, and we see a target that aligns with our core values and seems beneficial for the kingdom, we run at it. In our six years as a church, God has opened doors that have brought about immeasurably more than all we asked or imagined. Perhaps that’s why Saturday, March 14,
December 9, 2020
By Chris Moon In honor of its late pastor, Joel Wilson, Myrtle Beach Christian Church in South Carolina is working to help and house vulnerable people in its community. The church recently opened a shelter for mothers in crisis, such as those who come out of abusive relationships or who are homeless. The shelter is located in apartment units adjacent to the church. The church also is planning 24 senior apartments on its property. It plans to build the first 5 to 10 units next year. “To God be the glory. You write that,” senior minister Danny Banks told Christian
November 25, 2020
First Capital Christian Church, Corydon, Ind., is providing its Church Anywhere services to Branchville Correctional Facility via GTL tablets, a device specifically made for those who are incarcerated. The device allows prisoners to maintain contact with family, receive educational training, and participate in religious services. “Our ministry is based on building relationships,” Church Anywhere lead pastor Tyler Sansom told WBIW.com. “We use the technology to begin and foster those relationships with the people inside the walls. We also customize the video service for the incarcerated.” “Having a variety of religious programming available on the tablets allows us to provide spiritual
November 22, 2020
Lewis Street Church of Christ faced one obstacle after another; then, after the building was firebombed, people from across the country came together to help restore the building . . . and much more. Just weeks after he was named minister of the Lewis Street Church of Christ, Jameel Robinson delivered a message that shocked the congregation: Get out of the building. It wasn’t a “go into the community and serve” sermon, said Robinson, who had just moved from Mississippi to preach for the Little Rock, Arkansas, church. It wasn’t a sermon at all. The congregation literally could not be
September 22, 2020
By Crystal Kupper The word grandma used to be very scary for Jayme Walker Hill’s foster daughter. “Any time I would talk about my grandma,” said Hill, her foster daughter would share from her own life experience, saying, ‘My grandma was mean.’” “We would try to avoid that word, but she would still cry and be very fearful around older women.” Hill and her husband soon learned that their new foster daughter had been abused by her former adoptive parents, an older couple. The girl, now 19, operates at about the mental level of an 8-year-old. But this isn’t a
September 22, 2020
By Kent E. Fillinger The full impact of COVID-19 goes well beyond the number of confirmed cases, the death toll, and the unemployment rate that many are tracking. The pandemic has exacerbated several preexisting problems like anxiety, depression, suicide, child abuse, drug abuse, and others. These often overlooked “killers” are affecting scores of Americans today, and some experts say these conditions have reached epidemic proportions. Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, assistant U.S. secretary for mental health and substance use, said in late May, “The increase in the number of suicides, fatal drug overdoses and instances of domestic abuse will be broad, deep
August 15, 2020
How the Church Can Serve the Most Vulnerable in Our Spiritual Families By Tom Ellsworth Thirty-five years ago, Indiana issued a license plate with the slogan, “Wander Indiana.” I understood the invitation to casually tour the state for all it has to offer, but the wording felt more like an invitation to lazy futility. Can you fathom what it was like for the Israelites to spend 40 years plodding through a barren land on a journey that could have been accomplished in a matter of weeks? And many of them knew they would never set foot in Canaan, which only
March 27, 2026
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