Relaunching Outreach

I sat down with Pastor Marc Poland from The Discover Church in Philadelphia to discuss how to relaunch outreach in your church.

In this episode, Marc Poland discusses the different outreaches they did in their city to create a buzz about their church. We also discuss ten strategies for preparing an effective church outreach.

The Believe Again podcast is brought to you by Visit Planner. Double your monthly first-time visitors with Visitplanner, a full-service platform that combines targeted advertising with powerful engagement software. https://www.visitplanner.church/

Find out more about The Discover Church: https://thediscoverchurch.com/.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to the Believe Again podcast. I am your host, Josh Roberry, and I'm excited this season to bring you a series of conversations around relaunch, rebranding, and revitalizing your church after spending the last 10 years helping pastors build systems and structures to start new churches as well as help their existing churches be all they can be. I'm excited to bring some practical resources, some relationships, and some stories that I think are going to inspire you to help you in that process. And today we get to talk to my good friend once again, Mark Poland, the only three-time guest ever on the Believe Again podcast. Mark, you're basically a co-host at this time. There you go. I love it. Hey, we are back to back to back champions. I love it. We got the 90s Bulls here with uh with Mark Poland. So today um we're going to talk about outreach and how you can use outreach uh to to love on your city, to communicate to them that you love them before they even get the chance to meet you. But we also want to talk about the impact that outreach has on your church. Whenever you feel like you're you're not seeing momentum, you're not getting the word out about who you are, outreach is a great way to do that. Mark, how do you see outreach um when it comes to relaunches and just church life in general?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah, I think it's we've always had the philosophy that we're going to utilize our gift, talents, and abilities to identify install needs in our community. So that has always been a part of our DNA. And so our whole thought is like, again, if if our church wasn't there, would our city know that we were here? And so we've always had that DNA in us, and we've always tried to find opportunities of where we can serve, even if it's something like low entry to more complicated things. We just love uh the opportunity not only to serve, but what it actually does for those who are actually serving others. And it's just we just always hear stories around you know the impact of that. And so we can never, we're stories junkies, so we can never get enough of the stories that we hear uh from people who are serving.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

You know, I think uh even theologically, you know, bringing salvation to a city isn't just people praying decisions, but it's seeing a city restored. And uh seeing the goodness and the kingdom of God in your city should mean that your city is revived and that they can experience good things coming from your church outside of just saying the sinner's prayer. Um, I'm reading a book right now called uh Salvation Means Creation Healed. And the big, you know, emphasis of that book is that basically uh Christian salvation is not just a spiritual thing, it should touch every area of our lives. And so, you know, I always believe in being a part of church, uh church and emphasizing when I have the chance to help churches that outreach needs to be part of your culture. And that's been a big part of your culture from the beginning. Uh, whenever you guys relaunched your church to become the Discover Church, you guys went on a massive outreach campaign. I love hearing your stories about outreach. Uh, can you think back to maybe like the first thing you did to do outreach with your church?

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah, I think um what we did was uh like prior to to launching, um even the first iteration, we uh I mean there was some crime that was happening in the city, and we were asking, we went around and asked, you know, some of the men that were in the community, hey, what's happening? What like what can we do to serve the city? And uh and they were like, hey man, these kids don't have anything to do in our community. And so I'm a sports fanatic, I love sports. People in Philly are passionate about sports, so we started a flag football league, and then the first year we did it, we had 110 students uh in the flag football league.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Now, really, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah, it's it's unbelievable. We had so much fun, and let me tell you, it was so impactful, and we we funded everything ourselves. The next year when we did it, the city came and they funded it. So you don't ever have to go to the city, the city will come to you if you're doing something great. And so we couldn't continue to do that and lead a church. So the Lord will send us somebody who is uh faithful with sports and love to Jesus, and we'll start that thing up again. Um, but uh some of the other things that we did leading into, and some of the parents that are part of that flag football league ended up being on our launch team. I can think of one person specifically, and she was a key contributor to us raising the money that we needed to launch our church. Um, one of the some of the other things that we did was um we went to five different restaurants and we spent a thousand dollars on these at restaurant, and we just went in there with our red sweatshirts on, and we went in there and we paid for everyone's food in each restaurant, and just the love that uh we received because in our community people are not used to being generous, people are not used to having people uh do things for them without any um uh strings attached. And so I can remember specifically um this this this white gentleman came over to us and he said, This is how we're gonna change the world. And we believe in our heart that God is going to call, you know, called us to lead a diverse church. So for him to come over to us, and I mean they were people hugging, it was just amazing. So we we went to like five different restaurants. We, you know, like said we did that. Um one of the other things that we did that was a huge hit, we did a huge a gas giveaway, and um, and that actually went viral because people from all over the city started coming and we broke the gas station. That is a true story. We broke the gas station, that was fun, and of course we you know gave out invite cards as it was leap as we were leading up to our launch. And then one of the big other big things that we did, which was super huge, um, is that we bought $10,000 worth of target gift cards, so in $10 increments, and we started giving those away. Um now I will be honest, that didn't go as perfectly as we uh wanted it to. Um, but the great thing is is that because of COVID, we were able, because we didn't give them all away, we were able to utilize them during the COVID season to help serve families uh during that time. So so outreach is a big part of like who we are, and we have people that are absolutely in love uh with serving people, and and we're always trying to find opportunities where uh we can be a blessing uh to our community. So it's just fun. We love it.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Well, I I love hearing those stories that you that that you guys have done and been a part of in your city because I think you know somebody might look at that and say, well, you know, did this lead to somebody getting saved? You know, and um well, here's the thing, you know, there's bricks and there's mortar. Um bricks is what what we know holds up the house, but without the mortar, the bricks don't stick together. Right. And there's some things that need to happen before and after and while someone's making that decision, you know, to hold that hold that decision together. And I think a lot of times people need to to the conversation even be changed about Christianity, about the church, before they're even open to it. One one pastor who was very passionate about outreach, um, he led a church on Sunday morning, and then in the afternoon he led a church and met under the Mississippi River Bridge. And what they would do with that church is that they would they would feed everybody and then they would have church. And um he told me that it's hard to hear the gospel over the growls of an empty stomach. And while our communities might not be, well, there I know there are people hungry in every community, um, but while not everyone in our community may be hungry, there's other things that are other stories being told about the church in their mind that are not even making themselves available to hear the gospel. So when you give someone, when you pay for someone's gas, when you pay for their meal, when you give them a $10 gift card to the grocery store that they're about to go into, what you do is is you you you now have changed the conversation. You've earned the right to now say something to them that maybe you didn't have before. And I think that's so important.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think um, you know, if if you are if you've been a Christian for a while, that shift in the mindset is is is really, really uh important to kind of have the conversation. And and here's what we would say we do this not to convert people, but we do it because we've been converted. So it's the heart of Jesus. Let's just go out there, let's touch people's heart, let's be the hands and feet of Jesus, and then there'll be an opportunity where we can help people take their next step. And so that's always been our motivation. We do it because Jesus converted us, and that's what he commands us to do. And there'll be opportunities, even if it's not our opportunity, there'll be opportunities where people are like, hey man, God loves me, and uh and we will get an opportunity to have that conversation at a later time.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Well, you obviously did a lot of fundraising to be able to pay for something that sounds like it was tens of thousands of dollars worth of outreach. Not everybody has that budget, but there are some simple things that people can do that they might be surprised uh by how cheap and easy they are. And so what I've done is is over the years, I've created a list of 101 simple outreach ideas that you can do. Um, with that, I have 10 things you can do to help prepare for an effective outreach. So, Mark, maybe you and I can go over those 10 things and uh you can tell me kind of maybe some of the practical things you guys did to prepare your team. Uh, but if you want that, if you want that list of things, you can email me, josh at believeagain.co. I will send that over to you in a PDF. That'll be 10 uh practical ways for uh 10 tips to create an effective outreach as well as 101 simple outreach ideas. So uh before I get into the 10 things, Mark, what are some things that are on the top of your mind when you come when you think of, hey, this is what you need to do to prepare for an outreach?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah, I think um for right, you just find the need. I think you just have to talk to some of the key stakeholders and find the needs, even if there's like if there's schools, like there's a number of elementary schools within that five mile radius of where we are, and we just want to talk to the teacher or talk to the principal and said, Hey, what are some of the things that you need? And you know, they were like, Hey, we need school rulers. Oh man, we can do that, you know. So yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's just easy.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

And um, you know, just we talked to our school here in uh in Birmingham that our kids went to, and we said, Hey, what what do you need? Um, we we want to serve you. And um they said, you know, we we'd really like to get the mulch spread. We just you know, the the county is stretched too thin. I was like, well, we can spread the mulch, you know, uh we'll find out how much it is. Like, you don't even have to buy it. Well, we we have a budget for it. And they bought the mulch, it was free. All we had to do is show up and serve, and that created so much relationship with them.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Absolutely. And I think um the as this like it should you should work to develop the relationship, and and and let me tell you why. Um the school that we're in currently, literally, I just got a text message this afternoon saying, Hey, um, can you are you guys able to provide lunch for our teacher service? This will be the first so we've been here for four years, technically four years. This is the first time that we now have an opportunity uh to serve the school by just providing lunches for the for the faculty and staff. And you know, but it's it's taking time to kind of develop and build equity in our relationship, and uh and now they're counting on us to do to be the church and be able to provide stuff like that. So it's just amazing. And again, we're just having so much fun with it.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Well, let's uh let's go over these 10 tips for creating an effective outreach. I didn't prep you with this ahead of time. I'm ready to go. You're ready though. Okay, here we go. So, number one, I think you need to have your team wear t-shirts with your church's logo when serving. It's like free, I mean it's free advertising, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:10

That's correct. We call our team the Red Army. Uh, so they have our red shirt, bright red shirts, and people are able to identify exactly when they see them, they get to identify. Oh my gosh, it's those Christians from Discover Church that are being a blessing to uh whatever area you're serving in 100%.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah, and I don't think this is the time for high fashion. You know, I think I've I've seen some serve shirts where it's like they're getting all creative and they got all these different sayings and designs like real simple church name. You know, serve or love or something like that on the back, church name, uh, you know, and then you take those photos and you can use those photos over and over and over again uh in your church's online presence and in your church services. Hang hang those photos on your walls in your church.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Um number two, bring invite cards to every outreach and plan to give them to each person you serve. So you mentioned that, you know, if you're going to um if you're going to hand out a gift card or pay for someone's gas, it's so it's just too easy. Just have a little card you can hand them as well. What did your cards look like, Mark?

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Um, so for ours prior to launch, we had um we actually had two different kinds. So we had some for uh adults with uh again, just invite talking about the launch, but the ones that we did for students um when we went to serve the different schools, so we went and served four different schools. We had you know kids on the front and on the back for every kid that came, we gave movie tickets. Now you got to figure out what the equivalent of a movie ticket is nowadays because nobody goes to the movies, but whatever that is, we we've made sure that we had some sort of incentive to uh incentivize students to want to um come and be a part of our church. And that was a great uh experience for us as well. So um, but yeah, man, that that's what we did, and we still do it today. We give out invite cards every time we have an opportunity to serve.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Okay, another one I have on here is document outreach and tell the stories through social media and videos at your church services, which you do you do a good job. You share stories and things like that at our launch trainings all the time. Uh, but what are some ways that churches can tell stories and document from their outreaches?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah, I think um just have whenever you're doing something, just have people record what's happening, you know, whether you use your iPhone or if you can hire someone to come in and snap it, and and because you can use it for multiple purposes, right? You can use it in service to tell stories to inspire your church to get behind certain things. You can use it for social media to share on the outside what's going on on the inside of your church. And I just think that it's just a powerful statement when you can capture that information to share with uh with people because stories, you know, are you know connect people at the heart level and it inspires people towards action. So capture and document as much as you can, save them, archive them, tell them over and over again if it's important to you, weave it into your Sunday messages, uh again, let repurpose them for social media. You can use it for multiple, uh multiplicity of reasons. And um I just think that they're just so powerful.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

When it comes to your church, having those photos and and posting them is so important because when people Google your church and they search for your church, or as the Gen Z says, I don't know, um, if your daughter says this, my daughter says it, she says, search it up, search it up, search it up. There's you don't Google it, you search it up, search it up. Uh, when they search it up, um, what comes up? Well, if you've got these photos, that's what you want people to see. You want to see them serving and loving your city, like, oh, these are people who care. You're you're sending a message about who you are uh to them. You know, and I think another thing is you got to be ready to share about um your your outreaches and the outreaches that you have participating in on in your church services. So um when you do an outreach, you need to take time and document it with words, not just photos and media, but what's a story that we can tell, what's a life that was changed, who's someone that was touched, who's someone who had never been exposed to our church before, and how can we document that so we can tell that in church? Okay, let's talk about when food is involved. Um, have y'all done any food giveaways or anything involving food?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Uh we haven't done food giveaways with the exception, so we've done two things. We've either paid for people's food or um we've served teachers by uh faculty and staff by just taking lunches to the teachers, and they have just been so grateful. And I think nowadays, especially now, teachers are so underappreciated, and when you can go and serve them in that way, they're just uh it's just amazing. So um, but those are the things that we've done till this day. Um I do it, and many of the people in our church uh continue to do it. So every Friday I meet at a specific restaurant in our community, and I'm always looking for opportunities to pay for somebody's food. And so it's amazing to me, and I so I do two things. I meet with people that are part of our church, and then we look for opportunities to pay for somebody's food, and to see other people do it and to tell those stories. Um, it's it's amazing because I think our church as a whole, I think everybody, they want to they want to check the scoreboard, they want to know if we're winning, and these stories help them see that we are winning.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yeah, and so any anytime food is involved, if you can pay for it, um, you know, that's good. But if you're delivering food or handling food, got to make sure food safety is involved. I think sometimes we forget about uh some of these basic things uh whenever we're doing an outreach, and um, you know, you don't you don't want to be on the bad side of that news. So you need to consider outreaches based on different times of years, holidays, sporting events, uh festivals, school calendars, and university calendars. You've mentioned some of those. Uh number seven, your outreach should contribute without taking away. For example, don't give away free coffee outside of a local cafe. Um, that's what your gift cards were really good. It's like, hey, we're not taking away from your business. We are, we are bringing you business, you know. And um, you know, I think uh uh some of in the 101 outreach ideas that that I have, you know, one of them is whenever a school does a fundraiser at uh McDonald's, so you know they'll do a spirit night at Chick-fil-A McDonald's or Taco Bell. I don't I never heard one at Taco Bell, honestly, but um local pizza spot. What I've heard of people doing is they'll show up on those nights knowing that the staff has been, you know, really depleted because there's so many people there and they will clean the tables. They will take, hey, can I can I put your your tray away? And I've seen uh chur heard of churches who they'll buy like Sundays, so McDonald's will sell you a Sunday gift card for one dollar, yeah, and they just give it now, and now you're like now you paid money to them, which makes them happy. You're participating in the community and you're getting getting the word out about your church and showing who you really are.

unknown 19:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yeah, that's great. And these are again, these are not like eight either high-ticket or um or high effort, you know, uh things that you can do, and it just gets people, you know, on the on the low, like just get them introduced to serving without having to carry a lot of the burden of trying to create an event and just rallying behind something that's already established and just being the people resources um that can help get this thing going and make and make people aware of your church and shed a beautiful light on uh the Jesus brand.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah, and I think another thing that's important here, this is number eight on my list, is to prior prioritize safety and ensure people have the appropriate training and experience before attempting a specialized service project. For example, cutting down tree branches. And I this is a funny one, and changing the oil in a car. I was once part of an outreach where um I don't know how those cars drove off after some of those oil changes, you know. It's like they felt loved on, but they bring in them cars to get repaired in about two or three months because some of the people we had working, man, they did not know what they were doing. Oh my goodness. And and uh, you know, just people just not really understanding. And and and, you know, one of the things outreaches we did, uh, we've done here, you know, basically every year since we lived here, uh, a lot of power equipment, a lot of lawnmowers, a lot of a lot of saws and different things happening. And man, safety is the number one rule. It's a it's the number one emphasis. So what I would do is I'd go around and I would just remind everyone safety first. Um if there's any risk whatsoever whatsoever, do not do it, do not get involved with it. You know, air on the side of car like I'm like crazy. Goggles, gloves, sunscreen, water, um, you know, we gators, you know, the things that you could put to block the sunlight on your neck, long sleeves, kids away inside. We wouldn't let any kids outside um around the the power equipment. And you just do not want uh to turn what it could be something great into something very, very sad.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Yeah, and I think um, you know, for us, we've always what we found to be you know um sufficient for us, again, is just to partner with other organizations that are already doing things well and they just need bodies, just as they just need people.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Um that's a great point.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yeah, just over the summer we worked with caring for friends and and you know, and it's it's great because they've got the process in place. We just showed up, you know, strong, and we we made sandwiches, man, you know, for them to serve people in our in the city. And so um, but yeah, it's it's just for us um and the size of our church is just so much better for us to just partner with people who are already doing something well and they just need either they either need human resources or they need fine financial resources. Those are the things that have just been easy for us uh to get involved with.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Well, I think that's a great point, and then uh just two more here before. Before we wrap up, is remember to leave everywhere better than you found it. Make sure there's a plan to clean up after your outreach. Sometimes we need an outreach for some people's outreach. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Yes, that is true. We don't want people walking up when we leave, say, I don't ever want these people to come back again. They made a mess and they never cleaned up. Um, it's always the, you know, again, for us, we're always going to leave the place that we're at. We're going to leave it better than when we found it. And that is something that also is in our DNA. And we just look to try to make things better. And if we can't do it, we won't do it. So I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yeah, don't spread mulch and then leave the parking lot looking like New Orleans after Mardi Gras. You know, it's like it's like, what did we just do here?

SPEAKER_00 22:43

But yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

You know, it's we gotta leave it better better than we found it. And that's everything we do, you know, um leave it better than we found it. And then number 10 is serve with no strings attached. Be sensitive to the opportunity to pray for someone and share the gospel. Let's always happen. It's always an amazing thing. Uh, but we're not manipulating people into hearing from us. We're we're out to love people. So we don't want to make serving about them having to come to your church or listen to you preach. It's not that that just defeats the purpose of it. You know, it feels icky. It feels like you were you like there's an altered motive. Like, well, my motive is Jesus, that they would they would go to heaven. Yeah, we're earning the right to tell them that. And there's more than one way to preach the gospel, you know, and um and so we we we we don't want to force someone into a conversation they're not ready for. We want to love people. So anything you could say about that?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yeah, I think again, it's just really it's a mindset shift um for people. Um, I I know in the past, I'll have to be honest with you, I would I would hold, I would hold the sandwich behind my back and say, hey, accept Jesus first and then try to feed anything. He's like, you're just being cruel, man. Like, you know, um, but you know, but again, it was a mind shift, right? And so now I recognize that you know when you do something for people, again, it opens up their heart. But if I don't have an opportunity to have that conversation with them at that moment, like I'm okay because I did exactly you know what Jesus has uh inspired and asked us to do, and that is just to serve people and again be the hands and feet of people, and I'm okay with you know the results of that. So um, and there'll be other opportunities. And and if we keep serving and develop a relationship over time, then we'll have the opportunity. But you know what? Some plants, some water, but ultimately God gets the increase. I just want to do my part, our church will do our part, and then we'll let others and we'll let God do his part.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

So yeah, and a great resource for this is uh Pastor Dino's got two books that I recommend, uh Serve Elution. And um, hold on, look at this. I got it right here. Serve your city. Boom. So uh, you know, and in those, he talks about the fact that Healing Place and Baton Rouge, they they did all these things. They they served with that no strings attached. And then when Katrina came, who did the city call? Who'd the police call? Who'd the mayor call? Who did all these organizations call? They called they called Healing Place because they were the ones serving them. And so Healing Place got to be the ones to be on the front line serving people, sharing with them, and they got to win so many people to Christ through that. So uh you never know what doors that's gonna open up. Well, Mark, I think that's all we have today for this conversation. Um, we shared some great outreach ideas. Um we'll we'll wrap it up with you just giving us a little example. Hey, what are you doing now after you've launched? Uh, what are some things your church is doing to continue the outreach culture?

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Yeah, I think um one of the things that we're super, super excited about is that this year, so every year um on our anniversary, we highlight organizations that we're actually going to support not only by being the hands and feet of Jesus, physically serving them, but also helping them financially. And so at the end of every year, we do, and actually this year we did what we call our um impact offering, and every dollar that we raise this at the end of 2023, we are committed to giving that away to organizations, um both locally and internationally. And so the month of March for us is um Make a Difference month, March at Discover. And so each week we're going to highlight um the organizations that we've partnered with that we can help them further along on their mission. And so we're super excited, we we're pumped about it, and we think our church is going to like go bananas because they'll see, you know, because we often talk about like we can do so much more together as a team, and uh to be a part of that and let our church be a part of that and see how we're impacting you know our region and impacting uh the world. Uh I I can't wait uh for March to get here. I know we've got two more weekends, but we're fired up and we're ready to go, man. So uh look for you know some of those things on our social media pages, but um, and hopefully they inspire you to do some things uh as well. But we're super excited and uh we can't wait even for Surve Day. Survey is going to be huge, and uh we just keep adding people to the team. So it's fun, man. We're we're excited.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Yeah, I love that. A month of outreach uh with your anniversary just to celebrate the SIA is so amazing and wonderful that you guys do it, and what a great um opportunity it is to join in with many hundreds and even thousands of other churches participating in Serve Day. You can get the serve app. Um, you know, uh Mark has done serve day every single year with his church, and we we get to be a part of it here, uh Amy and I at Church of the Highlands, and we're always so thrilled to do that. And uh Mark, you mentioned um follow along. How can people stay in touch with you and and uh follow your story and your church's story?

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Oh man, you can follow us on Instagram at the Discover Church, and you can follow me for sure at Mark Poland, M-A-R-C-P-O-L-A-N-D, and love to continue the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Well, Mark, you're a great resource. Thank you again for making yourself available uh on this podcast to share some of your experience and wisdom. I know it's gonna be so beneficial uh to so many people. Go follow him on Instagram. And I also uh want to thank you for joining us today, and I want to thank our sponsor, Visit Planner. You can find out more about them at visitplanner.church. VisitPlanner uses targeted digital ads to help you reach more new people with your church. And with their program, what ends up happening is they find people who are looking for a new church that will schedule visits with you. And so they've seen hundreds and hundreds of people sign up and give their information to churches for the pastors to reach out to them to schedule visits and to see them come to church for the first time. It's an amazing program. I've not seen anything like it in my last 10 years of being here at ARC helping church planners. Um it's been just something that has really been revolutionary for people. And I know Brad and Zach and the team there are just some of the most amazing people in the world. Them being our sponsor goes right along with what we're trying to do, and that is to help people find new momentum. So go check them out at visitplanner.church. And thank you again for joining us for another episode of the Believe Again podcast. It's always a joy to spend this time with you. So thanks for being with us today. I can't wait for you to join us next time. Until then, keep believing and leading strong.