Reachout

Restore Listens in Liberty

Nate Williams, Campus Pastor of our soon to be launched Liberty site, led his team at the Liberty Fall Festival last weekend. They set-up a booth and handed out candy bars and water and asked people to take a simple survey. Nate really believes that before launching our campus in Liberty, we need to listen to people to determine how we can best serve them. Here's the note Nate sent to all of the people who served at the Restore booth.

Hey Everyone,

I wanted to give you an update from all of the time that we put in this weekend at booth at the Liberty Fall Festival.

Nine days ago I challenged everyone at the Liberty info meeting to join us in listening to our community. You responded to that challenge in a profound way. During the 3 day period of the fall festival we had 35 people who served in the booth. You were challenged to engage people in conversation as you handed out water. You did that so well, that we handed out nearly 1200 bottles of water. But people didn't just take the water and leave. You invited them to stay and share their opinions about Liberty. We received a total of 255 surveys from these people about what is going well and what needs to be improved. Out of all the people that did stop and talk, we had 14 people sign up to receive more information about Restore coming to Liberty. We even had someone visit Restore for the first time on sunday as a direct result of our booth at the Fall Festival.

This was our first concerted effort to engage our community in conversation and listen for the needs of Liberty. Because of you, we were incredibly effective. This event exceeded everyones expectations and was a great success. I just wanted to express my gratitude to all of you who joined us in listening to our community. I will keep you posted as we sort through all of the data that was collected. It will undoubtedly help us focus our efforts in Liberty. Thanks for joining us on the adventure of listening and serving our community.

Join Our Reachout Conversation

Join the conversation—the Reachout conversation.

God has built an amazing culture of the serving at Restore and our Reachout ministry continues to be the catalyst for that.

But Reachout is evolving and that’s where you come in. You’re invited to join us in the Reachout ‘conversation’ to develop ways we can better serve our neighbors, our city and the world.

Beginning on Tuesday evening, September 15th, we will hold a one-hour long ‘conversation’ about what it means to serve. There will be a brainstorming session, some dialogue, and some vision and strategy. Here’s where you can help us figure out what it means to serve.

Join us at the Restore Offices at 6:30PM, 3000 NW 50th Street, Riverside, MO. 64150

Whether you currently serve in Reachout, want to serve in Reachout, have an idea for a project, or just want to learn more about serving, this conversation is for you. No experience is necessary and we will very much welcome your input.

Our Reachout Story in the Christian Standard

I had the privilege of telling our Reachout story to the Christian Standard in an article called "Loving our neighbors, Building Relationships in Kansas City Missouri." Check it out.

I would love to hear some of your comments.

Replenish is Thursday Evening

I can't wait. I just love when we can come together as a church and serve. I am praying that 150 people from Restore will show up Thursday and ask the community to partner with us in getting school supplies to kids who need our help.

All of our small groups have been asked to mobilize. We've gotten the word out in the program. We're telling people on FB and Twitter. Every ministry is going to play a role. It's going to be great.

So join us will you. We're going to meet at the Metro North Mall Thursday night at 6:30PM. Email me at reachout@restorecc.org if you want more details. You can find all of the detail here.

Haiti Video--Praise Song

The team is starting to post video and pictures from Haiti. I will be posting as much of it here as possible. You can also go to the Restore Community Church Facebook Fan Page for more. Team Leader Charlene Garrison has also created a page called Reverberate @ Restore with more stuff.

VBS Praise and Worship Haiti 2009 from Restore Community Church on Vimeo.

What is the Role of Evangelism in Reachout?

I was talking with a Restore attender one day and she asked what role evangelism plays in Reachout? She wanted to know how and when we start talking to people about Jesus. Fair question, I guess, but one that I realized came at it all wrong. I gave her a version of my standard reply: Reachout is evangelism. If people don't see Jesus in us we're doing something wrong.

I contend that people are less and less responsive to hearing the gospel. They want to see it. We can debtate the theology of this one if you'd like, but I am just reporting to you what I see in the field. A true transformative relationship with Jesus begins in the context of community and not because someone simply knows more about the gospel.

So I don't see Reachout and evangelism as separate.  All Reachout really does is provide us the opportunity for relationships. If Reachout and 'evangelism' were separate for us, then all we would really have is an agenda on our hands and how authentic is that?

No, Reachout offers us the opportunity to build relationships with people and therfore offers us the possiblity of showing them Jesus and then we let God take it from there.

Partner With Your Community

Ask your community to partner with you while you serve.

An example of our success came during one of our Replenish events. We knocked on doors in the community and asked people to partner with us to gather food supplies for the Kansas City Rescue Mission. People were really intrigued that we were serving BEFORE we were meeting as a church. This is response is exactly what we wanted: people to be curious about why we serve.

Besides, I think it's way cool to have people who don't follow Jesus contribute to the Kingdom.

What Does Impact Look Like?

What does impact look like?

I wrestle with as leader of Reachout.

What is the goal? What are we trying to do? Where is this thing going? What is God calling us to be? How do we make a difference?

I pray; I read. I talk to people in Restore and get coaching and advice from those outside.

The word I keep coming back to is impact. As a noun, impact means: forceful contact; influence, effect. As a verb, to have an effect on.

That's exactly what we're trying to do in Reachout. We dream that God would use our community to be agents of impact in our community.

The more I do this Reachout thing, the more I realize that it's up to each of us individually to figure out how to make an impact.

Small Group Serving the Servants at Christmas

Another Restore Community Church small group is serving.

This group, led by Johnny Miller, is going to serve the servants. What is interesting is that this group is going to represent several churches while doing it because several people in the group attend other churches. 

The idea is this: fill coffee cups with goodies to hand-out to community servants who will be working at Christmas-time as a way of saying thank you.

The group was inspired by these words from the Gospel of Matthew: 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me' (Matthew 25:40).

Johnny emailed us this update:

"We have 200 plus cups packed and ready to give out starting this Thursday. We are giving them to the Liberty Hospital, Liberty Police, and Gladstone Fire station located on Antioch road....It only took us about forty five minutes to stuff and wrap them and them we had a great chili dinner together to close down our small group until January 4th. Members of the group along with myself will deliver the cups starting Thursday the 18th and we should have all of them completed by Saturday the 20th."

I am really proud of this group and love the fact that they decided on the project and carrying it out together.

Way to go Johnny and thanks for being a servant-leader!

Serve.Love.Change.

Restore Attenders Thanking Teachers for Serving the Community.

I am hearing that more people at Restore are beginning to find ways to serve the community. This is EXACTLY what we have been praying about. 

Service is starting to happen organically at Restore Community Church--and I love it.

Janet told me that several woman are going to deliver donuts and coffee to teachers at Park Hill High School, Congress Middle School, Renner Elementary and possibly Southeast Elementary to thank them for their service to the community.

I think this is a great idea given that we 1) meet in Park Hill High School and 2) are passionate about doing all we can to support schools in our community.

Our dream was for Reachout to become a catalyst to help Christ-followers become servants. Now that this is happening I couldn't be more excited.

I will let you know the details of this service project once I have them. 

Thanks to all involved!

Serve.Love.Change.