Church Outreach Idea: Worship in the Park

One of our outreaches for Seven Oaks Church of Christ this year was a “Friends Night in the Park.”  We have a local park with a nice pavilion, playground, basketball courts, and lots of open space.  We reserved the pavilion, took our grill, bought 400 hotdogs, chips, drinks, and desserts.  We encouraged our people to invite their friends and family.  One of our little girls invited 25 of her friends!

The Serving Line

We began eating at 5:00 p.m. and started the worship at 6:00.  The kids, and many adults, enjoyed playing soccer, football, and on the play-sets.   We had face painting for the kids too!

Eating some food!

Our hispanic brethren joined us for the night and we had a great time of fellowship with them.

We went throughout the park inviting those in the park to come and eat and worship with us.  Many of them did.  Not all stayed to worship, but some did and most all registered and took information so we have their contact information.

Here I am welcoming everyone!!

We gave away sermon CDs, had a drawing for a couple of books to give-away to guests, and offered many tracts.  I preached the lesson on the theme “What a Friend we have in Jesus.”  I made sure it was a little shorter, which worked out nicely.  The weather was great for our evening.    We didn’t know how many to expect for this inaugural event.  The count came to around 215, which was a great number.  We had lots of workers who helped transport items from the building to the park and back.  Many of the ladies served and the men packed tables and chairs and grilled dogs!  The kids loved it.

Our worship was special, except for the blinding sun in some people’s eyes!

We hope to do this again next year and get more friends and guests to come be with us.  The premise centers around it being easier to invite your friends and family to a park and picnic for worship than an intimidating church building.  We want to give our members many opportunities to invite others and get comfortable with inviting.  Every invite is a success, even if they don’t come, because someone learned the church exists and you care about their relationship with God.