For Christians please; What are some innovative and creative ways your church is reaching out to your?

The last couple of years:

We've had free car washes.

Set up a gift wrapping booth at Christmas time in the major store in town

Walked through the parade handing out bottles of water (our parade is in the end of July first part of August) At the same time had people stationed at various points of the parade handing out water to those in the parade. (It's a three mile course)

During the fair, handed out free water.

Had a week long childrens puppet ministry.

At the community mingle (the community mingle is a weekend where businesses get together and promote their wares) we gave away popcorn.

Help with the food and clothing bank

Housed people in the church during a weeklong power outage.

Christmas carroling.

Helped with housing victims of recent fires, helped with donations, etc.

Oil changes.

Shown movies (Our movie theater collapsed in 1999 and we haven't had one since. It's a shame, the theater was a national monument. It's the place the Dwight Eisenhower announced his candidacy for President, and he made his acceptance speech there, not bad for a town of 6000 people)

Then there is the little things that members do that go unrecognized. (Grocery shopping for the shut ins, sending various cards to people, transporting people around town, things that even I am unaware of)

All of this is done without a single charge to the people. Everything we do is free. It's done for the purpose of showing Jesus in an applicable way. All of this is done from a church of less than 50 congregants.

This January 13th, we are closing our doors for good, please pray for all the congregants during this difficult time.

Our new church..Emmanuel Baptist, has an indoor skateboard setting and open gym. They even have a half pipe and other stuff, 1/4 pipes etc... Many kids can just start there. Sometimes people need to come into the presence of God's people thru any available door, not always the front door. For children, it is difficult if thier parents do not take them to church. SO important for God to get some Word in when people are young.

Dramas, Kids Choir, Food Hand Outs, Bill pay, Children donations, Hospital Visitations, Just bought some property for a Life Center, Youth reach outs, Ministry donations....more I am sure

We are a small church, but whenever we hear of a specific need, we usually take a love offering to that person(s). Fortunately, most of the people on our rural road attend one of the many churches (about one every two miles). At Thanksgiving and Easter we all combine our services (6 different denominations) and give a love offering to those who stand in the greatest need. This year we gave money to a 40 year old cancer victim.

Well, I am not sure if this answer really fits or not, but I was a member of a huge church, that seemed to only care about money, so some of the preachers decided to break away and create there own church. The parishioners were mainly younger people. It was great. We were not "required" to dress up, and could wear what ever was comfortable. We were talked to in a way that everyone could understand what was being preached about. I really enjoyed it, and told everyone I knew to come.

Well our town had a Christmas Parade this past December and our church's float had people handing out free hot chocolate, our church also gives away water with scripture on the wrapper at fairs and things in and around our community in the summer

ɹɐǝɟsuɐs Consiglieri, What would really be nice is to have all these old drunkies as you call them donate the money that their giving you to get drunk on to the churches.Then the church would have the money to help people like they used to.

Moral decay has liquidated many of the churches today.They simply lack the funds to keep the lights on anymore.The above situation is a good example of what we are up against.People are more interested in the bar scene than the church scene.

I minister at a jail and get to meet a lot of "drunkies" there.They come and go, and then come again.I go to some of the court hearings.There I meet the families of these "drunkies" and druggies as well.They seem to be the ones that are really suffering.I offer a hope in Jesus to them and encourage them to find a church of their choosing.

Im amazed by cjunk's responce, that sounds like you have quite a bit of some sort of experience with church etc. I think every one should pay alot of attention to this responce, there is alot to learn from in it. Im actually in the same feild of ministry, but really think that each church is different, and blanket ideas dont work that well.

Well, I'm a Catholic teenager, and my church does a great job of reaching out to us...

We do things like:

-religious debates (great bc we love to argue)

-allowing teen bands to play at mass (draws more teens to mass)

-movie nights on the lawn (including pizza and a projection on the wall of the youth center)

-At our meetings we are allowed to do skits, or songs, and there is always lots of food

Also, we all volanteer at CSS (Catholic Social Services) and Metropolitan Ministries and do toy drives and supply drives for immagrant and pregnacy centers. We all try to spred the love as best we can!

Well the men go out and witness in our community.

We have a prison ministry.

We have a Nursing Home Ministry

Our Pastor and other men of the church visit the sick.