Cleverley Easter
RLGN 489-D01
5/13/2018
Local Ministry Strategy
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Event
My dream is to one day have a half-way house for women in recovery. I have seen this
house in my dreams and I know one day it will happen. In North Nashville there are not any half-
way houses for women. This is a big need in our community and even our world today. In
addiction recovery, the goal of treatment is to return people to productive functioning in the
family, workplace, and community. According to research that tracks individuals in treatment
over extended periods, most people who get into and remain in treatment stop using drugs,
decrease their criminal activity, and improve their occupational, social, and psychological
functioning. However, individual treatment outcomes depend on the extent and nature of the
patient’s problems, the appropriateness of treatment and related services used to address those
problems, and the quality of interaction between the patient and his or her treatment providers.1 I
feel if we have a second step for these women to go there would be even more of a successful
rate of recovery. With working in a women’s rehab home currently and actually heading up their
fundraisers and marketing, I feel like I have a good grasp on what is needed to have an event like
this and what needs to be done. I hope I can show you my vision of this event through my paper.
We are having the first annual spring fling for the Next level. The Next level is a non-profit
Christ centered recovery home for women. We are trying to raise money for the home, to help
women in recovery get their feet on the ground and continue the recovery process. We will be
having a silent and live auction to help raise money. Also, all vendors will donate a ten percent
portion of their sales to the home. There will be live music for people to hang out and listen to all
day. There will also be a variety of food trucks for people to choose from
1 National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: AResearch-Based
Guide (Third Edition)2018
The location will be at my home church that we helped start, The Movement Church. The
Movement Church is a good central location in Hendersonville, Tennessee. We will have in the
parking lot of the church, but since our church is in a strip mall, we will have to get permissions.
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and different kind of vendors to shop. “In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing
certain things well. So, if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith
as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach
well. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God
has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for
showing kindness to others, do it gladly.” When we have different people that can do different
things it adds to God’s glory for working towards a common goal.
Outline
Again, this is the first annual spring fling, it is to help raise money for the women in the
Next level recovery home. Before this all goes into place there are lots of things needed to be
done first. The first and foremost is prayer over this event, we do not want to do anything
without God’s guidance. Also, in having this event, it is not something to be rushed into, so it
will take three to six months to come together. You would start this in probably January, hoping
to put on in May. After having lots of prayer and guidance, I would then select a few strong
people to come along side me to help plan and put this together. No one can plan these things by
themselves, just like children it takes a village to put together a function like this. These people
will be ones that I know I can count on, that will help me put in the hours and outreach needed.
These people do not include the volunteers and other help we will need to make this successful.
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We will need permission from the landlord that owns the property, from the other renters. Also,
we will need permits from the city.
Depending on how big the event is or that we predict it is going to be, I feel we will need
Fifty to Seventy-five volunteers. Need probably twenty volunteers to help oversee the silent and
live auction. We need ten volunteers to run our kid’s area and ten people on making sure the
correct areas are staffed or to help with relief. There will also need to be at least five volunteers
helping in the music area and another five helping to keep the food area clean. The other twenty-
five will help cycle out and help with relief in whatever area is needed.
I would hope to attract lots of families and people who will come and shop, have fun and
stay around for the auctions. We will have to build a stage and also have picnic tables for people
to sit at for food, also tables for auction items and seats or benches for live music area since there
is not a grass area. Need to make sure we have plenty of space for vendors and food trucks to be
set up. Finding donations is actually one of the easiest things to do, because our community is
such a giving community. Companies always are really good at stepping up and helping donate
items or services for events like this.
I would hope about six weeks before the event I can start blasting social media outlets. I
will paste on any community board available. Then one week before the actual event, we will be
in full blast promotions, anywhere and everywhere. The event will start at 10am with live music
all day. We will have a silent action from 10am and we will start closing tables at 12 and last
table will close at 1pm. Where then we will start the live auction at 1:30 which will end at
2:30pm. Then at promptly 3:00pm we will start closing things down, hopefully have everything
cleaned up and tucked away to send everyone home by 5pm. Of course, with any event or
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situation you have to be prepared for things to go sideways. So, we will have some extra time
built in throughout the day for that.
Follow up
In this event things can go either way, and I have been a part of where they did go both
ways. I will explain what my own personal experiences have been, in hopes that I would correct
them and move forward the next time. A few days after the event, I would gather my core group
together for a meeting. In this meeting we would tally up how much we did, roughly how many
people we had. We would also go over the demographics of things and make plans to meet again
to go over what went great and needed improvement. This first meeting would be a quick follow
up and prayer meeting in lasting only thirty minutes. We will meet again in two weeks to an
month, after things have returned to normal pace and everyone is adjusted. “Let us think of ways
to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting
together, as some people do, but encourage one another”. Our next meeting would be more in
detail of what we can improve or can be done different. For example, did we have enough food
trucks and food. If we did not have enough what can we do to change that? The same with our
vendors, was there enough of variety? Do we need more vendors or less, I would also ask the
community what their thoughts were? We would also talk about how much money we raised
compared to how much we thought we would raise. Everyone has a number of what they are
hoping for but that doesn’t mean you will hit that number. Along with money raised, we would
discuss the number of volunteers. I have been apart where we have had a abundance and where
we needed a lot more, it can go either way with that situation. I feel it is always better to have
more than less, but sometimes you also don’t want good help standing around. Concerning live
music, was it a hit, how were the bands or people that sang, did the changeovers go smooth
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enough for everyone? These are all questions you would go over and more. You will have to be
very honest and open in your concerns and praises. Having these events are not easy, they do not
just take time, but prayer, effort, encouragement and backing. I have said since I started my
journey in school and ministry that I do not take one step without God. When it comes to events
like this, it is even more true. God always guides my steps, I may not understand them, I may
feel lost on them sometimes, but He provides and sustains in all I do.
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Questions
1.What kind of events would you like to see in the community?
2.What outreach programs do you think we need more of?
3.What is your reason for those programs?
4.What else can we do as individuals to bring our community closer together?
5.What kind of changes would need to be made to make this happen?
6.In doing events in what way would you be able to help?
7.Do you know other people that would be willing to volunteer, donate or help?
8.How can we get people to this or any event?
9.How should we promote this event? In what ways?
10.What kind of crowd do you think we would get?
11.How do you think this would help impact our community?
12.Where in our community is a good common ground for people?
13.If we can make a difference in our community, do you think it will start to spread in
other communities?
14.In having this event do you think we can raise awareness.
15.I believe that God can bring all of us together, do you?
P|
Live
Music-
are
10:00am-3:00pm
All
Day
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|
The
Movement
Church
es
a
-
ey
Hendersonville,
TN
37172
Live
Auction
Starts
at
“
1:30pm
a
Live
Music,
Vendors,
Fun
for
Kids,
i
Food
Trucks,
Silent
and
Live
Auction
7
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Works Cited
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A
Research-Based Guide (Third Edition)2018
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation., Carol Stream, Illinois
60188.
