Community Ministries

Community ministries are those services intended to address the needs of an entire community rather than just individuals. Traditional Christian ministries over the centuries have included establishing schools, hospitals, clean water projects, relief projects (especially after disasters), and rescue missions. This theme picture

Other kinds of projects include cleaning parks, beaches, waterways, or streets. It might extend to undertaking needs that the community infrastructure can't do (for lack of funds or legal authority). In some poor communities, there may be ministries to provide an income to people. (Examples include providing sewing machines, materials for making hygiene or other needed products, autorickshaws for running taxi services in rural areas, bicycles to help people spread a cottage industry over a wider area, or just giving people ideas about how they can assist the broader community profitably and affordably. In much of Africa, building community water filters or digging wells is a valued community projects.)

Larger projects might be beyond the resources of single congregations, but many congregations working together can get the job done. Occasionally, MATTHEW 25:34-40 Ministries helps to form a collaboration across denominational lines. Vision4Africa is an example of this, but we have also done this in many cities. These collaborations can also be effective advocates for social justice issues and affecting legislation at all levels of government, such as human trafficking, child exploitation, spousal abuse, homelessness, and anti-divisiveness.

The activities of community ministries are not constrained to physical needs, it also extends to spiritual needs. The Vision Ukraine ministries to parents of disabled children or ministries to refugee communities are examples. However, organizing or leading public prayers or demonstrations against injustices or for public projects to protect children are examples of community ministries as well. Even being a cheerleader for another ministry's good idea can help transform a city.

Working with churches in one region that were already helping addicted people to overcome drugs and alcohol, our ministry helped them cooperate in a way that greatly improved the success of all of their programs and assisted the people they had been helping in many new ways to ensure they stayed clean and sober. Many people were so helped that they volunteered to help take the Good News of Christ to small villages that had never had a church before. As of 2020, more than 48 villages have stable church congregations where there had been none before.