With the best of intentions, churches plan community outreach events in the summer: free food and fun festivals of all kinds, free movies, and events that are tied to local summer traditions. Though they often get a large attendance and everyone has fun, we need to ask ourselves, how can they do more for the kingdom of God?

Being community friendly and providing free events isn't enough if we want to use them to grow our church and ultimately to help people come to know Jesus as Savior. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves why we do all the work we are doing. It's easy to fall into the habit of thinking that just doing good things will help people think kindly about our church and Jesus, but we live in a secularized world, where it takes much more than attending a free BBQ to change the eternal destiny of a soul.

To do that takes often sustained contact with your church and to move beyond a one-time interaction at a fun event, you have to be intentional in your interactions and follow-up with your guests. Here's how you can do that: [Read more...]