Networking Conversations

NOTES FROM CONVERSATIONS WITH OTHER LEADERS THIS WEEKEND:

  1. Stay ahead of the curve with your bank. Contact them now and inquire about delaying payments. Our bank immediately offered a 3 month deferral in light of current situation.
  2. Providing continued ministry in creative ways online is essential right now but also providing online events, zoom meetings, etc. Right Now Media is a congregational resource you can pay for to provide to your church family. This demonstrates faith and maturity from us as leaders to help our people see it is not time to give less but to give more if you are able to do so in order to continue to help families that are in need and will be unable to give in some situations.
  3. Food Distribution: People from our churches who are feeling fine can buy food and bring it to the church for others. Destinyokc has a food list posted online for people to see what we are packaging in the bags of food we have been providing.
  4. One church has partnered with Children’s Hunger Fund to provide packaged meals in their community.
  5. Governor Stitt shared in a recent pastors forum that some school districts have been commissioned to provide food. Churches can check with schools in their area.
  6. Drive In idea is a way to gather in the parking lot of your church or perhaps another larger, empty parking lot in the community asking people to stay in their cars but to gather together and stream together on their devices. We did this last night and took time to place our hands on the windows praying for those in the cars beside us.
  7. Mobilize phone calls to all the people in your church especially the elderly so everybody is checked on, prayed for and encouraged during this time on a personal level.
  8. Zoom is free for meetings under an hour. Host meetings for staff, leaders and small group leaders asking them to do the same with others to help create a sense of community and conversation during this time.
  9. Schedule content routine – mobilize your ministry team to push out encouraging ministry content on specific days of the week so you have a rotation of consistent ministry going out. Consider not only how to inspire but how to empower families practically and spiritually. Ideas like build a fort in your living room with your children and post a picture with a #hashtag so everybody can post and see each other participating. Encourage communion in homes, etc
  10. We are considering a parking lot parade. People can simply come and drive around the parking lot area to see friends and family from their cars encouraging people to dress up or decorate their cars. Give a package of 30 rolls of toilet paper to the winner.
  11. When people are desperate they turn to God. Provide a brief and simple Gospel presentation online that people can watch so they feel more empowered to share the Gospel with friends and family. They can also share the link but encourage them to share the Gospel themselves.

God is causing us to grow in a deeper awareness of his plan for the church to be mobilized beyond our buildings. God is creating a new wineskin to contain a new harvest and we must grow and mature through this process refusing to go back to the way things were. May we be perpetually mobilized to bring God’s people to places of greater maturity to lead their homes in pursuing God’s presence and God’s purposes.

Joel speaks of turning plowshares into swords and pruning hooks into spears. In this season God is wanting to give us new strategies for existing tools that already exist in our hands but we must see our resources from his perspective.

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