Endorsement from Sheila Malcolm, 

Rutland St Church, 2019

Given my role requires me to invest two days a week focused on community outreach, and my own personal passion to see the church engage more effectively in our community, Organic Outreach has been a wonderful way to help the church rediscover it's DNA, which is a commitment to the Great Commission.

 
Lincoln Rout, our Mission Elder, has been particularly helpful leading the charge with Organic Outreach, firstly amongst the Eldership Team and supporting Leaders and then, once they were engaged, using Organic Outreach as a way to bring culture change with our Ministry Leaders. Shortly after the Leadership started on Organic Outreach, we also commenced a CAP (Christians Against Poverty) Debt Centre. One of the ideas developed in Organic Outreach is 'vectoring ministries of the church 2 degrees' so that the church will be more open to the community. This translated in our setting to ask our Ministries if they were “CAP ready”. Were they ready to be welcoming and open to the adjustments that might be required if CAP clients or their families wanted to attend? Naturally everyone wants to say 'yes' but Organic Outreach helped us tease out the reality.

 
More recently we have encouraged our Ministry Leaders to recognise that rather than leading Ministries, they are in fact leading Missions.

 
Its early days given we only commenced Organic Outreach at the start of 2017. However, it's fair to say that our people's willingness to engage in outreach initiatives like the Hope Project and invite people to our Alpha course, is well ahead of where we were two years ago.

Book: Organic Outreach for Churches, Kevin Harney, Zondervan.

Check out the Organic Outreach books that are recommended on this website in the Resources tab under Recommended Equipping Books.

Check out the free resources on www.organicoutreach.org