What If Faith Was Never Supposed To Have Been About the Building???

In my books, I reference the bleeding-heart campaign of my twenties: to expand our church’s presence beyond the four walls of its building.

And by “reference”, I mean I briefly, BARELY touched on some examples of what that looked like: neighborhood tours, prayer exhibits and so on.

Still somehow, those parts stuck.Whenever I spoke (about any topic–even unrelated ones), I began noticing the same questions surfacing.

How did you do that prayer exhibit you talked about in your book? Or are there directions on how to do a neighborhood tour like you described?

Then I would look down at my shoes and feel a little impractical, mumbling about how I somehow wrote about the experiences without it occurring to me to put the exercises out there too.

So I’d find myself hastily spelling out the steps to carry out the initiatives while church leaders scribbled them down on scratch paper.

It eventually occurred to me that I should probably get around to writing that book.

And the time has finally come. Now, as I get ready to help my church kick off some new presence in our community, that book is finally on deck.

And we’re putting out open calls. If you, your friends or your church want to get a free copy of these outreach-style exercises and try them out in your community, we’d love to have you collaborate on the resource-in-the-works.

Four churches are already signed on and we’re expecting more!

What is it? A series of hands-on exercises that help individuals, groups and/or churches study and respond to their local communities.

Like what? Like directions for going on a self-guided tour of your community’s neighborhoods and questions that will help you reflect and share back about observations/needs.

How does it work?

• You can get a group of people to do the exercises together (all on the same day, small group outing style)
• OR, you can print the exercises and make them available (like say, through your bulletin) for members to try out on their own.
• Most of the exercises can be completed in under two hours and for the most part, don’t require high costs or extensive organization.
• You can do the exercises any time you want.
• You can also do them in any kind of community: rural, urban, suburban, doesn’t matter.
• You can do 1 or 20 of them, depending on what works for you.

Other freebies: We’ll be making some little talks available for you to listen to and distribute as you like (both audio and video). AND, depending on availability, I’ll be visiting some of the churches if they so desire.

ALL OF IT, ALL OF IT, ALL OF IT is free of cost. For now. :) Once the book is out, the shelling out begins. ;)

If you, your group or your church is interested, hit me up: sarahraymondcunningham (at) gmail (dot) com.

There’s good things ahead and you know I’d rather chase them with you along for the ride. :)

Also, whether you participate or not, you can follow me on Twitter (@sarahcunning) to get regular outreach tips hash-tagged #unbox.