Friday, January 25, 2008

How To Start A Ministry To The Poor In Your Community



For the last five years or so I've been leading teams of people to go out into the community and serve the poor. Over time I've learned a lot, and I thought it would make sense to publish what I've learned online so that others can benefit from my experience.

A lot of what I've learned I learned from doing it wrong the first few times. The rest I gleaned from people who were much more experienced than I was at the time, and from watching others do it and deciding that wasn't the way for me.

So, there's enough material here to fill up at least three, possibly four, articles on the subject. I started sketching out some basic ground rules for serving the poor, and then put together some tips for how to minister to people. After that I listed out the types of ministry that can be done in your community and then culled ideas from other ministries like Sjogren's and Soul Survivor, and a few others.

This series could end up being very long, but hopefully very valuable to anyone who wants to start serving the poor where they live, and/or for someone who wants to start a ministry with their small group or church.

Of course, I've already started putting together a book about Compassion Ministry called "Secret Service: Developing A Heart Like Jesus" which will undoubtedly benefit from this upcoming series when all is said and done.

At the moment, over at the [Subversive Underground] (my free, weekly e-newsletter) I'm finishing up a series on the subject of Trust and how fundamental it is for us to not only understand it, but to have it towards God.

After that series is done (next week), I'll start this new series "How To Start A Ministry To The Poor In Your Community".

I hope to provide some practical guidance to ministry towards the poor and assist people in getting involved in their community- sharing the love of Jesus with the least among us in tangible ways.

To sign up for the [SU] see the link at the left and make sure you don't miss it.

-kg

1 comment:

Parke said...

I look forward to reading it friend. At some point here I may send you an e-mail, picking your brain a bit on serving prostitutes as well. Thanks for putting yourself out there.