1. Setup a clothes trading program or event. People can come together and trade clothes, or just have free clothes for people who need help.

2. Stone Soup – help everyone save money, and build some community by having a potluck gathering where people bring different contents for soup, and you all make and eat the soup together.

3. Setup a website or bulletin board to help setup car pools for people in your community.

4. Setup a volunteer to coordinate a program where people in your church or community get help renting out their empty rooms. Helping them with advertising, cleaning it up, screening, etc.

5. Have a garage sale at the church, members and locals can bring their stuff to the church, take a little square, and sell their stuff. A large aggregated sale like this benefits b/c more people will be interested in a monster garage sale.

6. Have volunteers teach financial classes at your church, advertise them as free to the community.

7. Setup a ministry of mechanics who take one Saturday a month to consult on car problems for locals and members.

8. Setup a job board, connecting the employers in your church with the people without jobs in your church.

9. Create a gathering for entrepreneurs – men and women who want to start businesses (helping the economy, creating jobs) and who want to do business in a godly way. Make a one day seminar that takes people through the steps of starting a business, removing some of the mystery and encouraging them to do it.

via 9 Ideas for the Church in the Bad Economy | Catalyst.