Go Around The Church

Yesterday, I went to an inner-city Christmas giving program. It was fun to see several churches involved, but often these kinds of ministry have no local church connection. We will know that a church is the vehicle and the kingdom is the objective when its people start going through the church to pursue their call to ministry.

Twenty First century America has an enormous number of people who are part of legitimate ministry target-groups. For example:

Teen Mothers (Numbers are going down, but there are still thousands every year)
Children Living in Poverty (The numbers rose significantly during the 1990s).
School Drop Out (Each one will cost taxpayers $536,000 during their life)
Physically Disabled (Over 90% have no connection to a church)
Health Care (Over 42,000,000 are without health insurance)
Isolated Seniors, (Longevity often means more years alone)
Homeless, (Includes huge numbers of women and children)
Addictions (The varieties are staggering)
Prisons (Over 2,000,000 are behind bars)
Literacy (One in five adults is illiterate)
Refugees (Arriving by the thousands)
Hospice (Thousands die alone)

These groups represent kingdom opportunities that are seldom on the radar screens of the power brokers in seminaries, denominations or churches. There are certainly more than a hundred such groups.

Since the Great Commission is still the GREAT Commission our Target Group strategies can’t end with the NEED groups. From a Christian perspective the “up and outers” are also a mission field if they don’t have a relationship with God. That means there are also a variety of AFFINITY groups that need to be reached:

International Students (750,000)
High School Students
College Students
Ethnic Groups
Motorcyclists
Fishermen
Campers
Golfers
Hikers
Teens
Moms
Dads
Etc.