Creative Ways to Connect Church and Community

How does your church connect with your community during the summer?

When I thought about that, I looked to churches in my southern Minnesota city of some 25,000 for specific examples of summer outreach. I discovered four ways of connecting—via food, entertainment, evangelism and service.

Let’s start with food because, well, food always brings people together. Ice cream socials, strawberry festivals, lunches and pizza nights all draw folks into churches in my area. I especially like the creative moniker of Holy Smokes for a once-a-month Wednesday evening concert and offering of homemade smoked meat pizzas served outdoors by members of one church. The quiet hilltop location presents a casual setting to simply enjoy good food, good company and good music in God’s beautiful creation.

Once a year, during my city’s annual Heritage Days celebration, my church prepares and serves a free community lunch to hundreds in our gymnasium. What a great opportunity to open the doors and welcome people with a hot meal served by smiling volunteers.

Not all food offerings need to be event-oriented. For example, one congregation in my city sells peaches as a mission fundraiser each August. It’s a service to the community that brings peach-lovers into the church basement to pick up crates of special-order juicy peaches shipped directly from Colorado to Minnesota.

In my congregation, a dedicated group of bakers meets weekly during the summer and fall to craft homemade pies sold at the church and at a member’s apple orchard. Proceeds fund faith and community projects. The pie makers feed body and soul via this unique ministry. Each pie comes with laminated baking instructions and a Bible verse, John 3:16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.

More and more I’ve seen area congregations connecting to community through outdoor summer concerts with music ranging from folk to Celtic to bluegrass and other styles. Game nights—both board and yard games—bring families to local churches. Likewise, car shows draw another demographic. The radio club at my church hosted a professional wrestling event, a particularly creative way to use entertainment to connect with the community. Churches need to think outside the box when seeking ways to reach people.

A rural parish in my region looks to the past by hosting a mission festival in a cow pasture each August. And, yes, the farmer moves the cows the evening before the outdoor worship service that features a guest mission speaker, old-time hymns and a potluck afterward. It’s an historic and memorable way to worship in the great outdoors.

Other summer evangelism opportunities include these from my congregation: setting up a booth and handing out free Bibles at the county fair and also participating in a local community parade. And, like many other churches, my church offers a five-day Vacation Bible School that attracts many unchurched children.

Service projects also connect church and community. Several congregations in my city host Red Cross blood drives. Church volunteers help build houses for needy families through Habitat for Humanity. And some churches sponsor community service days, assisting residents with assorted projects such as painting houses. Or in my city, cleaning yards and farm fields after a September 2018 tornado.

As I brainstormed for this blog post, I found myself impressed by the many ways local churches connect to the community through food, entertainment, evangelism and service. So many people serve the Lord and others in truly creative ways. The Holy Spirit can, and does, work through these outreach ministries.

Now I’d like to hear how your faith family connects to your community. Please share those outreach ministries in the comments section below. We can all learn from one another as we seek to grow God’s kingdom by actively connecting to our communities.

As a creative, Audrey Kletscher Helbling appreciates the unique ways in which churches today reach into communities. She’s experienced the joy of volunteering at family festivals and Vacation Bible School, events which connect children to a faith family and introduce them to Jesus.