Check out this great photo on Flickr by Nick Nieto (click on pic)
Looking for some ideas to help and reach out in these tough economic times? Then you are not alone and here are a few ideas to help kick start your brainstorming sessions in your ministry. HT to catalystspace.com for posting the following ideas.
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.