By
Genevieve
Hamer March 4,
2019
Local Ministry Strategy
RLGN 489-B02
Ministry Praxis Capstone
LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Submitted to Dr. Vander Wiele
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of
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I
Introduction
According to Gary Bredfeldt in Great Leader, Great Teacher, “Churches have their own
personality, or what I like to call spiritual style”1 However, style set aside, it is the role of the
church to be a community and to serve the others. When God created Adam, he was the only
person on earth. God said it wasn’t good for man to be alone, so he created Eve. (Genesis 2:18)2
This was the first community. It was intended from the very beginning for mankind to be in
relationship. Not only was mankind called for community, but also the final command of Jesus to
his disciples was to go out and witness to the ends of the earth, “But you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea
and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)3 With these things in mind the purpose of
this paper is to introduce and explain a strategy for a ministry event addressing a dominant social
issue within the community and providing a proper biblical response.
A.Ministry Event
Some people do not like to speak up and express their ideas because they are afraid of
them being ridiculed or shot down. No one wants to feel like their opinion does not matter. One
of the worst things we can do in church is to say things like, “that won’t work, we’ve tried it
before” or “we’ve never done that before”, without even stopping to consider a new way to
approaching something. Due to these things, the survey design for selecting this event will be
based on an easy way to administer and actually receive answers. Survey Monkey will be used
to create a multiple choice and fill in the blank survey. The questions will be straight forward
Gary Bredfeldt, Great Leader, Great Teacher, (Moody Publishers: Chicago, IL) 2006, Pg. 151 The
Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984.
bid.
with easy answers and will be anonymous. The means of distribution will be mass email, direct
mailing, hand-outs and bulletin inserts. There will be a time deadline for answers.
In Everyday Church, Tim Chester and Steve Timmis write that 70% of the
population in the United Kingdom have no intention of ever attending a church service. They go on
to say that in Australia 68% of the people may claim to be Christian but church attendance has
steadily declined to 8% in 2001. The authors contend that these same trends are appearing in the
United States and Europe.4 What is the real issue that is making people turn away from the
church? Is it the institution itself or could it be that the church is not doing a good job of letting the
unchurched know that they are welcome? Creating a welcoming environment that does not feel
overwhelming is the idea behind the church community event that has been selected for this
paper. A Trunk-or Treat will be held which will be open to the entire community.
Trunk-or-Treat will be offered as an alternative event to trick-or-treating but also in
conjunction with it. In our community, the local park has an event that is held every Halloween
and ends at 5 p.m. Therefore, this event will start at 5 p.m. All of our church congregation will be
asked to volunteer to decorate their cars and those that cannot may donate candy and small
prizes. Themes for the trunks will be requested to be biblical in nature. There will also be a praise
band on site, free refreshments, games and a station available manned with trained personal
counselors that can help anyone that wants more information about accepting Christ or the
church. It is a great opportunity to reach many people for Christ that may never enter the church
on their own.
4 Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Everyday Church: Gospel Communities on Mission [ (2011). Everyday Church (p.
6). Crossway Books. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com.]
B.Ministry Strategy
Raleigh, North Carolina is the capital of our state. The area surrounding our church is a
suburb of this metropolitan area. The immediate community is right in the center of the Town of
Garner, North Carolina. Land near the town of Garner was first settled around 1751. In the
1850s, the North Carolina Railroad was built, and before the 1870s, a wood-and-water stop was
established in present-day downtown Garner. The community of Garner's Station received a post
office in 1878 and was incorporated in 1883, but the community had its charter repealed in
1891.Garner has several local churches and ours is one of the larger in the community. Our
church does a lot of things in around the area. As of the census [2] of 2000, there were 17,757
people, 6,950 households, and 4,830 families residing in the town. The population density was
1,385.1 people per square mile (534.8/km²). There were 7,252 housing units at an average
density of 565.7 per square mile (218.4/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 67.02% White,
27.13% African American, 0.41% Native American, 1.11% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 2.77%
from other races, and 1.54% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.75%
of the population. There were 6,950 households out of which 34.0% had children under the age
of 18 living with them, 53.5% were married couples living together, 12.7% had a female
householder with no husband present, and 30.5% were non-families. 24.2% of all households
were made up of individuals and 6.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or
older. The average household size was 2.51 and the average family size was 3.00. In the town,
the population was spread out with 25.0% under the age of 18, 7.9% from 18 to 24, 33.6% from
25 to 44, 22.6% from 45 to 64, and 10.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age
was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and
over, there were 89.2 males. The median income for a household in the town was $47,380, and
the median income for a family was $58,302. Males had a median income of $37,359 versus
$29,805 for females. The per capita income for the town was $22,433. About 4.9% of families
and 6.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.9% of those under age 18
and 10.1% of those age 65 or over. 5 The population now is about 40,000 with the average family
income of about $80,000- $100,000. The median age in the community is 36-40. The area is
rapidly growing due to the demand for jobs in the region
At our church, we have a Baptist Men Mission and an active Youth Ministry. However, like
many of the churches in our community, we have seen a decline in members over the recent
years. Finding ways to reach the people that are right there in our community seems to be
illusive. Selecting a facility to hold the event is important. In order to reach the unchurched, one
must be willing to meet them where they are. This means stepping outside the walls of the
church building and the pews. Luckily for our church, we are located right on a main
thoroughfare in town. Therefore, the facility will be our church, Aversboro Road Baptist Church.
We will use the Sunday School Parking Lot to host the event. The parking lot is large and also
has marked spaces that we can use for the cars that will be decorated to park. There is a large
overflow parking area that can accommodate cars nearby and you can see the event from the
main road that passes by the church. We will need candy for the guests, games for anyone that
would like to participate that are homemade (i.e. fishing game, bowling, hopscotch), tables and
chairs for resting and for eating, music equipment for the praise band, stage, microphones,
tracks, facepaint, prizes. There will need to be at minimum 50 volunteers not including the
people that have trunks. The Town of Garner does not have many requirements on church events
as long as they are conducted on church property. There is no noise ordinance and no permit
required since we are not serving alcohol or having fireworks. The only requirement from the
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garner,_North_Carolina
5
Facecbook banners with this also posted and disposable temporary signs.
D.Event Evaluation
town is that temporary signs can only be placed four weeks prior to the event and must be
removed immediately after.
Timeline will be:
3:00 p.m. Volunteers arrive
3:05 p.m. Setup stage and sound equipment
3:05 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Set-up game and food area
4:15 p.m. Set-up Counseling area
4:15 p.m. Trunk Cars begin to arrive
5:00 p.m. Open to public
5:30 p.m. Pastor Welcome
5:00- 8:00 p.m. open games, trunk or treating, food, music and counseling
8:15 breakdown
9:00 Final check of area; secure building
C.Promotional Material
Promotional material will include this insert in bulletin and as a flyer in local businesses
As part of the event, there will be a space set up with personal counselors available.
These individuals will be members of the church that have had prior training in witnessing. At
the event, each of our church members will have evaluation cards on them that they are asked to
hand out to adults and teens and to assist any children to complete. The evaluation card will not
be invasive. It will be a simple card – one side will say: Name; Address; Phone; Email; Would
you like to be contacted. The other side will say Today I: Made a decision for Christ for the first
time; re-dedicated my life to Christ; Need prayer (with a blank); Am curious about Christ but
need more information; Would like to visit you again; Love this event but have a home church.
The members will be instructed to encourage guest to complete the card right there with them
instructing them that they can give as much or as little information as they feel comfortable with
sharing that we just want to know if they had a great time. Bins will be scattered to collect the
cards. After the event, is over the congregation will pray over all the responses and then we will
dig in to record the responses and evaluate them. Any decisions for Christ, if name and contact
provided will receive a call and letter with a personal invitation to meet a specific person at
church on Sunday. All prayer needs with contact information will receive a card that says they
were prayed over by the church and specific person. Specific needs will be addressed
individually as noted on each card by the Hospitality and Community Outreach Committees. A
report will be generated with the overall responses and delivered to the congregation. This will
also help gauge the number of people in attendance so that the church can see that we are on
mission for Kingdom work and working towards reaching the unchurched as we planned in the
beginning.
Just as Mark 16:15-16 says, “And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim
the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever
Bibliography
Bredfeldt, Gary, Great Leader, Great Teacher, (Moody Publishers: Chicago, IL) 2006
does not believe will be condemned.6” Jesus echoed the sentiment in Matthew 28:19-20 to go out
into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole world but also to also make disciples of
all nations so that they would be taught to observe the same things that Jesus taught His
disciples. This call to discipleship of all nations still can be carried out today by our local
churches through the spreading of the Word of God, the Bible. In the scriptures we have what
Jesus taught and the disciples wrote down. Today, God is using those words to make disciples in
all nations and they can observe all the things that He taught His disciples by reading the gospels
and doing likewise. The end of the story is that Christians need to be going into the world to
share the gospel, even if it is in your own community.
The Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984.
Chester, Tim and Steve Timmis, Everyday Church: Gospel Communities on Mission
[ (2011). Everyday Church (p. 6). Crossway Books. Retrieved from
https://app.wordsearchbible.com.]
The Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House,
1984.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garner,_North_Carolina
