175: Church Spotlight: Outreach Ideas To Increase Visibility and Connect with Your Community | With Sarah Harlow

In this special episode of the Small Church Ministry Podcast, host Laurie Graham talks with Sarah Harlow about creative, meaningful outreach strategies for small churches. 

Sarah shares innovative ways her church connects with the local community, from blessing baristas to writing appreciation cards for community leaders.

In this episode:

• Discover how to do outreach with limited resources
• Learn simple, impactful ways to show community love
• Get practical tips for engaging local businesses and leaders
• Hear creative ideas for church events and community connection
• Understand how small churches can make a big difference

Whether you're struggling with outreach ideas or looking to reinvigorate your church's community engagement, this episode offers practical tips and heartwarming insights that will encourage and inspire ministry leaders.

Connect with Sarah Harlow:
https://shorturl.at/8OyLw

Join our free Facebook Community: www.facebook.com/groups/smallchurchministry


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Transcript

Laurie Graham: 0:01

Hey, welcome to the small church ministry podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I'm your host. Laurie Graham, let's dive in. You. You. Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of the small church ministry podcast. We love talking to people in small churches all over the place, hearing what's going well, what the challenges are, because the more we share together, the more we realize how much we all have in common, no matter what denomination you know, small town, rural, big city, you know, anywhere, we just have so much in common because we love Jesus. So here we go. We're kicking off today's episode. I'm talking with Sarah Harlow out in Georgia. Sarah, do you want to just do a quick intro and maybe even tell him why you're here today? Oh,

Sarah Harlow: 0:56

I love that. I live in Warner Robins, Georgia. It's right here, right smack in the middle in the heart of Georgia. Um, my husband is the priest at Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church, and we've been here for 10 years. And I also am a career art teacher. I've been teaching for 22 years. So it's definitely creativity, definitely kind of rides through everything that I do.

Laurie Graham: 1:20

I love that, and I love that you mentioned that you're an art teacher. Yeah, so many times people in small churches, most of us have like, careers, like, we have jobs, we have things we have to do. It's It's always funny when we talk to guests and even like speakers at the conferences and ask people what their challenges are, because people are like, well, you don't understand, I'm working a full time job and volunteering, and we're like, half of our pastors are too. That's kind of the life in small churches. So that's really fun. Before we jump into talking about outreach, which is the main topic we're going to talk about here. How has being a teacher, how has that played into I don't know your church skills at all. Do you see any overlaps with what you do with that? Oh,

Sarah Harlow: 2:05

yeah, I do have to, I kind of have to be careful to not, like, go straight to putting on my teacher hat and telling people what to do. Like, I'm not always the one in charge. So it definitely does carry over. And, like I said, the creativity thing. I think everything should be beautiful and colorful and, you know, esthetic and all of that. So, yeah, it's definitely me.

Laurie Graham: 2:28

I love it. I love it. I love art teachers everywhere. So, and I also think your job is exhausting. So anyway, but we'll jump in. So we're, we're talking about outreach, um, you all wherever you're listening from. I asked Sarah to come on the podcast with us, because she just spoke recently at the women's ministry for small churches conference, and the people who heard her were like, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Taking notes, you know, it was just different, like, what you shared was different in terms of outreach, in what you're doing, in your philosophy, just in the way that you do things. But Sarah, as we talk about outreach, what is your definition of outreach like when you think of outreach events or outreach program or just outreach that churches should or could be doing? How do you define outreach like, how

Sarah Harlow: 3:16

does well, and it does look very different for us small churches than it does for really big churches. So for a big church, they might be able to put on a big event that brings in a lot of people, guests and visitors. For us, it's more what can we do for our community, and what can we do to help them know that Jesus loves them, that we're here and that that we have a way to bless them, like we want to do things that, like, make them feel loved. So that's part of what we're all about,

Laurie Graham: 3:49

yeah, and, and there's so much depth in the simplicity of that, right? Like, just let people know that, that we're here, yeah, and that let them feel loved by us. So what's unique about the things that you have been doing in your church as far as outreach goes? Why did so many women come away from that conference raving about your session? Because they did. It was like, it was like, we never, we've never done something like that, right? What do you think is unique about what you do? Well, um,

Sarah Harlow: 4:19

I think that I've really like this is through our women's group especially, but I've really tried to gear it to things that we can do successfully with the number of people that we have, that we're also really trying to be grounded in the community that's really close to our church. I'm not trying to do something that's city wide. I know the business is on my block, and for me, I think it's really important to know, like, how much your group can accomplish successfully, because you want it to be successful, and like that, it really personally reaches somebody. I. Um, and we have seen a few guests here and there. And I think part of it is because we are consistent in what we do like. It's always giving, it's always reaching out to other people, and you can't help everybody like it really, really focusing our efforts so it's it's accessible, and I think that's probably what makes it a little bit different. Yeah,

Laurie Graham: 5:28

now you said the word successful several times that you want to do things that can be successful. With your numbers, you want to be successful, so define what success is to you. Like, how do you judge that was successful.

Sarah Harlow: 5:43

I think for us, it is like my group comes away feeling like they accomplish something. They feel like what they did was meaningful, that they know who the thing is that we're sending out, or like who's actually going to receive that? They know that it's going to meet a need somewhere like it's really specific. So for us inside our group doing things, we feel like we've grown like in our community, we felt like we've done something that's meaningful, and then we've also we know it's successful because it's meeting a need that's out there in the community, like somebody really needs what we're actually offering. Yeah,

Laurie Graham: 6:27

well, I love that you're talking about, like, do something that will be successful, because I really believe our small successes build our confidence and our faith and our our own assessment of the fact that we're all called to make a difference, you know, like, when we can personally feel like, wow, I did something that made a difference that, you know, and sometimes it's a seed, and sometimes it's a full blown wave, right, right? And we can feel like we did something, I think that's, I think that's a very, I'm trying to think how to say that like a god. It's like a god feeling, you know, like there's something really divine about it, like of being just part of something bigger than ourselves. And so I love that. So do you want to just dive right in and give us some examples of some of the things that you've done? Oh yeah, outreach. Oh yeah, I'd love to hear that

Sarah Harlow: 7:16

was one thing that I talked about at the conference, and that it really like, kind of organizing myself for the conference really made me think about how we have done different things for different groups, like really specifically and so, like one thing that I think is really helpful is if you were small. So how can we align with others? How can we reach out to other organizations that are already doing something that's bigger than us than we can handle, like we have a food pantry that's near us, and they have church staff that can be there and run it all the time, but we can help stock that pantry. So we always have a food drive. We have worked with our foster families, and that's one that I really love. We've done a lot of fundraising for them. We have done, like, a an accessory sale, which I which was like so much fun, because accessories always fit. So like, you don't have to try anything on. Jewelry is always awesome. And so how can we run raise funds for someone, or how can we collect things? And how can we, like, really meet a need that's really big, but that we can, like, do something small within our church with the people that we have? Yeah, and you

Laurie Graham: 8:38

know that that alone is a really good venue or technique or strategy is seeing what what's already happening around you, not necessarily to find the hole that's not being met, right? Because oftentimes we talk about that like, Well, if there's already a food pantry, maybe you can do something different, right? Like, we all don't have to have a food pantry. But I love what you're saying is these organizations exist, and we can partner with them. We can do things to help them. We can put our talents in that hat and help them serve and do it together. And so I think that's a huge strategy for smaller churches, because we do sometimes, you know, want to go in places where let's, let's, let's dive in a little bit. And I don't know, kind of build our build our serving muscles, maybe in a way that isn't such a huge stress stretch, or even even a huge stress for people who are already doing so much in so many other places, so awesome. What else?

Sarah Harlow: 9:38

One thing that I kind of felt was important when we were figuring out where we would do our outreach, was that we really try and focus on, like, what is something specific that we can do? Because it's really easy to spread yourself too thin, and so we didn't like. Right? It sounds terrible. Well, you can't help you can't help everybody. That's okay. And so we're we, we have really tried to focus on families and children, and some churches focus really heavily on the homeless, or they focus on veterans, or they focus on, you know, medical needs or something. And I felt like it was helpful if we could really pick organizations that aligned with, like, a specific group, so that we weren't trying to be, like, all over the place, and when you got limited resources, you got to focus. And so that was, like, something that was important. And then, like, who is in your community, who's closest to you? And that's why I said, Know who's on your block. Have you met the businesses across the street? Have you met the businesses that are next door? And so we've done some like, Well, I'm a teacher, and some big churches have come in and provided breakfast for the entire staff, and that's like 150 people my little church, my little church can't do that. What can they do? So we have done some things for like, the daycare center that's right close to us, because that's a teaching staff as well. So like during May, when it's Teacher Appreciation, we've done some things for them. And like, it's in my mind, like, oh, we need to do something again for them, because it's been a couple of years, it's like, okay, there's staff turnover. What can you do again? And they they see us, and they know us, and they drive by our church every single week and you say, Oh, we're the one with the big stained glass window, and they can find us again, or whatever, you know, whatever makes your church stand out. I've got the steeple, you know, whatever. And so it like we have found companies and businesses that are really close to us that we can like relate to. The one that I don't think I mentioned they Darin the conference was that we did a bless your barista, where, like, on the way to women's group on a Saturday morning, we had everybody stop by whatever their local coffee place was and leave that barista a nice big tip, be very generous, and leave our church business card. So it's just that point of contact with someone in the community, and it's, you know, we all live all spread out all over the place. And so it was like just another moment where we could kind of put it in their minds who we are, but also doing it in a blessing sort of way. Because if you just stand somebody something, they're not interested, but if you gift somebody something big, yeah, then you've got their attention. And so that was like another thing. It's like, oh yeah, I've heard of you before. Oh yeah. I know where that church is. You know, like just getting, yeah, getting that word out.

Laurie Graham: 12:43

That's sweet, kind of like little x, that's really sweet. You know, early, early on, when we first started talking, you mentioned the importance of consistency, and you've also mentioned doing a lot of different types of projects, like at the, you know, helping with the food pantry, the bless your barista, the daycare down the street, things like that. So in your mind, what is, where's your consistency? What does that look like? How important is it? And also, have you seen some results from that, like what, what's happening in your group or even in your community as a result of your consistency? Um,

Sarah Harlow: 13:20

we have circled back to doing some of the same places, you know, a second time and of a different way. And for us, it's also like doing it often, that it's, it's not just like, oh, well, we did something in January and we'll do something again next year. Like, this is something that every you know month or a couple of months, we're doing something, either as a whole church or just as our women's group to like, keep, keep sending out the word of who we are and that Jesus loves them. We always make sure we've got information about the church and everything that we send out, or that we drop off or whatever, and so it, it kind of helps our people know that this is something that we do like we are always, not insular or not like completely inside ourselves. Part of our community plan is to get out in the community. Yeah, well, that's

Laurie Graham: 14:22

what I wondered when you had mentioned consistency earlier, because I knew you did a lot of different types of projects. Like, that's how we found you for the conference. We kept watching you just burst these things into the Facebook group. We're like, Who is this woman? Like, look at these really cool things that your small church is doing. They are fun, by the way, but I wondered about that with the consistency, if it's like, even just a cultural consistency for your church, like, like we are givers, like we are concerned about our community, we are going to be, you know, leaving tips, taking things, blessing people outside our church. Because I think even if you do multiple different types of projects, I mean, for a lot of churches. It's like, well, what are we gonna Who are we gonna give our Christmas Eve donation to this year in the community, like, that is the outreach, or that's a big part of it, and it's not a consistent part of the culture. So I imagine, even, even after doing bless your baristas, I mean, I imagine, I imagine people in your church are, are doing that on their own, like not just that one day, because when you do it, you make somebody smile big. It's like, you want to do it again. And so I can imagine that it's changing the culture in your church. It,

Sarah Harlow: 15:28

it, it's kind of like it's established. And like, I love that it's part of what we do. You know, they're like, oh, yeah, what are we gonna what are we doing next? Or, what can we, you know, what should we, you know, who should we bless? Or what else can we reach out to? And I think that's really important. We are a small group, so a lot of what we have found to do are things that we can, like, put together inside the church and then take out like we're not going door to door. We haven't set up a table at a festival, because my people can't handle being in the Georgia heat for too long, but it's it's letting us put together and do things together, which is also really good for our community, like in the church, and building up my people so that they like, feel like they can make a difference, even if they're not physically capable, or, you know, whatever is kind of their limitation, like we can do, we can still do things you can be important.

Laurie Graham: 17:04

Yeah, it's the whole doing what you have with doing what you can with what you have, you know, not looking at all the things we can't do, right? But what do we have? What can we give who's close by, you know, and not making it so big that it feels unachievable, right? I mean, it's just to me, it's just very Jesus like so keep going. What else do you

Sarah Harlow: 17:24

have for one thing that we really enjoyed doing, and actually, I think we're going to do it again tomorrow, because we meet tomorrow. We meet about once a month, is that we have written cards to our community leaders. So I got, I think off Amazon, cards that say we prayed for you, and then we all are signing it and writing a message in it, and then we sent it to like our chamber of commerce members. We sent it to our school board. We sent it to like the mayors of all the little towns in our county, just sending these little cards out. And we did have an event that we invited them to. We do fish fries every once in a while. And so we were invited, you know, free ticket. Welcome to come. You know, just drop in. And it was, we actually did have a couple of them show up, which was really great. Um, just to thank us for, like, taking the time to write that, to thank us for praying for them, because it's so important. Um, and I say when you, you know, we talked about when you write these cards, it is not about politics. You nothing about that. It is I care about you. The Lord cares about you. We appreciate everything that you do and the time that you spend serving. You know political party doesn't matter. They're giving up their time. They're working for us and the community. And so we wrote these little cards and sent them out. And it's really easy to do, and we could do it at the church, at home base, and then just drop them in the mail. I think we haven't done like our police and fire chief, so we might do that next. And just to kind of keep sending, sending out the word that we are here and that we care about what they're doing for our community. And it was a lot of fun. We like

Laurie Graham: 19:16

that one. Oh, that's very cool.

Sarah Harlow: 19:19

We have done we like to do things around Christmas to give as gifts to our guests during the Christmas season, we have a what's called Lessons and carols, is one of our big events right before Christmas, and it tells the story of Jesus throughout the Bible, through Scripture and song. And it's a big community event. We have a lot of we have a couple of organizations that come regularly to it. They love it as part of their Christmas tradition. And then we always have cookies afterwards. And if you come to a party, you have something that you take home with you. There's always something that you're taking out the door. So a little party favor. And we made magnets, which I got everything for those at Hobby Lobby, which makes it easy, Hobby Lobby or Amazon, great things. And you know, like I can order stuff, I can go pick it up, but we put those together and it had a scripture verse on it, and it was all like scrapbook things. So it was like stickers and paper. And even. My people who say that they're not art and craft, people did just fine with it, because it was really just like a symbol, you know, you can, like, hodgepodge it all together, and it ends up looking really cool, and they all look completely different, so original. You know, it didn't matter who made it. And we've done, I call it an Advent in a box, where it was like, different things that kind of reminded you of Christmas. We've done just ornaments that we bought before we've done this was a lot of fun. We got together at church and we made checks mix. But it's like, sweet checks mix. It's got is, like, made with, like, white chocolate was always delicious, and we made that in bags, and then we could hand that out at that and so it was like, when people are coming to us, we want to make sure that they're leaving on a positive note, that they have enjoyed their experience, and they're taking something with them. So I think that's really good to do around those big holidays where you might have extra guests is have something that's ready to go.

Laurie Graham: 21:36

One thing I'm loving about this conversation is how excited and how lit up you are as you talk, because it is so cool to hear a lot of different ideas. You know, we can get different ideas from all over the place, but the one, one of the themes that I keep hearing you go back to number one is that we want people to know that we're here. And how many times do small churches really feel like they're not making a difference? Nobody even knows they're there? People drive by, you know? And I think that consistency of putting yourself out into the community that you know this is just, we just want them to know that we're here and that we love them. I think that is a beautiful way to be visible, right? Without doing a bunch of, you know, just random advertisement. And the other thing I'm loving about our conversation is that you are just so lit up and smiling and at every project, Sarah, every single project. And the reason this is so stand out is because so often what we hear is, I'm so tired of doing it all myself. I'm doing all the work myself. Nobody will help. And this is where I think our joys and ministries collide, is when, when I can do a whole lot of ministry work and not get tired at all if I love what I'm doing. Like, I mean, there's just something so different about that. When you're excited and you're really lit up about a project, about purpose, about, you know, the magnets you're making, or about, you know, doing a laundromat outreach or whatever, like, when we're excited about something, it's a very different way of serving, and I think we need to do that more so you've been you've been volunteering in ministry a long time. And so how do we get there more often? How do we get to where we're serving out of excitement and joy and not just the grind of, oh my gosh, nobody's in the nursery, or we need somebody to run the slides like, how do we? How do we do that more? Sarah, give us a little

Sarah Harlow: 23:38

wisdom. Yes, I wear all the hats. I do help serve in nursery, and I do run the our Facebook page, and I do make our like videos during Sundays. But I think it's a couple of, it's a couple of things like, how do you actually get to where that's a good time? Basically, is that one I do make it easy to put together and cut. Like, come up with the ideas like, make it so that it's accessible. If it's going to take me 17 hours to prep this thing, I can't do that. Yeah, I just can't. I work full time. I've got kit like you can't. There's not 17 hours. So if it's something like I said, I get order off a hobby lobby or off of Amazon or something, and then it's like, oh, it's in the box. Then that makes it a little bit easier for me to maintain and for me to complete the project, because otherwise I get distracted and I forget to complete the project. So it's something that I can get all the way through. I look for a lot of ideas that other people have started. And then I can kind of tweak it to make it for church, like I look at a lot of Teacher Appreciation gifts, but then I change it into something like Christian based that will work really easily for us. And I do it. I I do it because I like to make, I like to make things I like to, you know, like, but that's you're doing things you actually enjoy doing. And that's, I'm just on a campaign that volunteers

Laurie Graham: 25:23

should really like, we should love what we do, and not that everything is always easy. But I really do believe ministry should be fun. Yeah. Yeah, and

Sarah Harlow: 25:32

finding, like, people who like to help, or, like, even, even if somebody's not coming up with the ideas there, I've got people that are more than willing to go shopping for me, or they are more than willing to sit there and write notes with me, you know, like, there's something that they can do that they don't feel like it's too burdensome. And I can ask, can you do this? Absolutely, they can get that thing done for me, and that helps. And I yeah, I know where my strengths lie, and it's the teacher hat, but you know, like, I know that I'm pretty good at organizing and, like, getting things going, and then it helps that I've found some people who can really help me finish the task and get it done.

Laurie Graham: 26:24

Yeah, yeah. Well, that is so awesome. Thank you for just taking the time to be with us today on the podcast. You know, wherever you all are listening from the the people we meet, the people we're talking to, are amazing, and I just want to say they're around you in your town too, and they're at churches nearby, and they're in your own church, and they're sitting in a pew or a chair in the back and and they might even look like the shy one who's who's never stepped up, but the amazing people that we get to meet and talk with in our Facebook communities and in our conferences in small churches, they're around us all the time, like sometimes we just need to step step up or step out or step back, sometimes right to make Room for gifts and just finding that joy, that joy in ministry that maybe you used to have, and maybe you still have, but sharing that also with the people around us, so that we can be a collective right. Because I think what you're sharing, Sarah is how like, I mean, that's the church I want to be part of. Like, wouldn't we rather have fun together, you know, and be getting to know each other, building good relationships, working and serving together and reaching out in the community. Like not being so insular, I think that was the word you used earlier. Love that word, like not being so insular that we're, you know, kind of creating an us and them environment, which too often we do so well, if anybody's listening right now, Sarah, and they're kind of like, that sounds fun. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know where to start. Like, how would that even work in our church culture? What advice would you give to somebody who maybe isn't as outreach happy as you are? Like, I haven't had that kind of experience. Where do we start?

Sarah Harlow: 28:12

I think this, this comes back to my husband's being the priest at our church 90% of the time. If you have a great idea, they're gonna say yes, because you have, you know, like you're showing like I have an idea. Here's how we make it happen. It's easy and accessible. If, if you're coming in saying, Okay, we're going to start a festival and we're going to host 50 other churches, you're probably, you're probably not going to do that tomorrow, but if you're like, we want to make goodie bags for the business down the street, they're like, oh, okay, that sounds great. And it's, it's very doable. So I think finding something that's that bite size, you know, don't do it this month, set it for next month. Give people time to get the things together and get it on their calendar. And that way, like it, gets more people on board. You talk it up at charts, you put it on your Facebook, you know, whatever. And that way people are aware of it, and they can really join in with you and come alongside you and make it happen. And then you do it again in a couple of months, you come up with something else that you want to do, and it just it keeps you ready. It keeps you always thinking ahead to like, Okay, what else can we do? What else? Who else can we reach? How else can we love on people? Yeah,

Laurie Graham: 29:33

yeah. Love it so good. Well, everybody got another week ahead the rest of your day, whatever you're headed into. You know, I love it when we quit thinking about church just being on Sunday and we think about being the church every day. You know, church is a great time on Sunday to get together and and, you know, sometimes it feels like being with our peeps, you know, and getting back together. But we are the church every day, every day, no matter where we're walking. And so, Sarah, thank you again for being with us and to everybody listening until next week. Be like.