Hope Evangelical Free Church
A Model of School Engagement and Community Partnerships
By Krista Petty
Church Name:
Hope Church
Location:
Oakdale, MN
Web sites:
www.hopechurchoakdale.com
Compassion Ministry:
Bridges of Hope
Church size:
600
Key Audiences:
Suburban churches looking to partner with schools and other
community agencies to be agents of grace to their community
Key Lessons:
Ask for help and develop a system of accountability to your planning
Leadership voice and vision are important to grow and sustain
The church can serve as a connector of people to good works already
happening in the community
From Internally Focused to Externally Focused
“Where do we start?” It’s a question most churches ask when there is a spark of interest
for community involvement. At Hope Evangelical Free Church in Oakdale, MN, Senior
Pastor John Larson and his fellow leaders began a quest for answers to that query because
they strongly felt God leading them to reach out more effectively into their community.
At the start of this quest, in 2004, only about 50 of the church’s 600 members were
engaged in community ministry. By the end of that year, though, that number had
increased by 400 percent. By 2005, some 250 parishioners were deployed in the city and
by 2006, the summer months alone engaged 306 church members logging over 1355
hours of community service.
Hope Church’s journey from internal to external focus has been one made possible by a
humble willingness to learn from others. While leaders are excited about the many
community ministry programs Hope has launched in just a few short years, they are quick
to give credit to those they consider mentors and coaches in their journey. By asking for
help and embracing a willingness to learn and try new things, Hope Church has built in
just a few short years a community outreach ministry with a solid leadership structure
that already is engaging hundreds of parishioners in hands-on community service.
Ministry Context
Oakdale, MN is a small suburban community outside of St. Paul, MN with about 27,500
residents. Its residents are a mixture of working class to upper middle class—and the
demographics of Hope Church are reflective of its community. Hope Church grew from a
small group meeting in a home in 1979 to a vibrant church family with 600 people
worshipping each weekend. The typical parishioner is a middle-aged adult with kids.
One-third of the church members live in Oakdale, while the rest commute to the church.
Hope on Mission
The externally focused ministry arm of Hope Church is called
Bridges of Hope. “We have chosen to partner with several
organizations in the community,” says Todd Christiansen, LayLeader of Hope’s Externally Focused Ministry. Each year, the
church sends hundreds of volunteers to work with the
following community agencies:
Bridges of Hope
Our Purpose…Glorify God
through service that
demonstrates Christ’s love and
draws people to Him.
Our Mission…Serve the
community by mobilizing
Hope’s people to meet needs.
Oakdale Public Schools – Volunteers are involved in providing
warm clothes and school supplies for children, as well as assisting with property
maintenance, child care, mentoring, and caring for families in crisis.
City of Oakdale – Church volunteers have helped with landscaping, diversity planning,
serving with the Oakdale Business and Professional Association, and sponsoring a
program providing Christmas gifts to needy families in Oakdale.
New Life Family Services – This is a nonprofit crisis pregnancy center and adoption
ministry. Hope Church has provided supplies, equipment, paint, carpet, and volunteers.
Human Services Inc. – Hope volunteers have participated in a variety of service projects
through this community human service agency.
East Metro Women’s Council – This nonprofit provides transitional housing for homeless
families; Hope Church members have served at the Council by doing landscaping,
painting, and maintenance work as well as by mentoring, serving dinners, and providing
child care.
Family Place – Hope volunteer teams help prepare and serve meals to the homeless
through this local nonprofit agency.
Project Home – Starting in fall 2007, homeless families will be temporarily housed at
Hope Church for one night, one month each year. The church will provide a meal and
comfort to the families who come.
Local Senior Housing – Hope volunteers have helped with maintenance projects.
American Red Cross – Hope sponsors two blood drives each year at the church.
Two additional ministries at Hope have arisen out of the passions of particular church
members:
Baskets of Hope – Gift baskets to encourage families and individuals in crisis
Quilts of Hope – Quilts are assembled as gifts to give to those in need.
Hope’s partnership approach has been beneficial for community agencies, the school, and
the church. “We are beginning to be the ‘go to’ resource in the community when needs
arise,” shares Todd enthusiastically. “The city comes to us for some consulting and
recruiting for projects. The school approaches us to address needs. A crisis pregnancy
center relies on us. A social service agency sees us as a partner.”
Because Hope volunteers and leaders have built credibility with community agencies,
they are ‘top-of-mind’ when needs arise—a relationship that wasn’t in place just a few
years ago. “We are developing a wonderful relationship with
the Oakdale Elementary School,” Todd reports. “We’ve had
people there helping to organize their library, helping them
with furniture, providing coats, hats, mittens and school
supplies. We are now having a few instances when people
hear about Hope Church, and [they] respond by saying, ‘Oh,
that’s the church that is doing such wonderful things for the
school,’” says Todd. Hope has also helped the school offer
parenting seminars in emergency situations. For example,
when vandals destroyed much of the Oakdale School
playground, the people of Hope sprang into action, taking a
special offering for supplies and completing installation soon
What does HOPE CHURCH
after. This came on the heels of 306 Hope volunteers
believe is important?
contributing over 1355 hours of service to the school by
raising funds for backpacks, washing windows and painting
Body Life (Inward)—Intentionally
door frames—saving the school thousands of dollars in
sharing my life (Hebrews 10:24-25)
with others at Hope to experience
maintenance costs.
Step One: Ask, Learn & Build Leadership Structure
From the outset, Hope Church leaders wanted any
community ministry they started to be based on accurate
knowledge and information about their community. “We
hired a consultant to help us evaluate our ministry and run
focus groups in the community to assess needs. We used the
data obtained to decide on our direction for more effective
outreach into our community,” recalls Senior Pastor, John
Larson.
Church leaders also spent time reading about other models
and ideas. “The consultant told us about The Externally
God and be encouraged in my
faith by exploring, discussing and
applying God's Word together,
praying together and caring for
each other.
Missional (Outward) –
Intentionally reflecting (2
Corinthians 3:18) Jesus' lifechanging power in my life and His
passion for the lost by investing my
life in actions and words to those
outside of hope, so that the life
Jesus offers may become their life
too.
Worship (Upward) –Intentionally
responding (Romans 12:1-2) to
God by obedient living and
community praise as an
expression of awe and gratitude
for who He is and what He has
done for me.
Focused Church book. After reading the book and finding it to be very valuable we
contacted one of the author’s, Eric Swanson,” reports Todd. “Eric suggested our team get
involved in with other churches that were on a similar journey—some further down the
road and some at the same starting point.”
In 2005 Hope joined the Externally Focused Church Leadership Community sponsored
by Leadership Network. “The most important, most effective tool for us to cast vision to
leadership and staff was our participation in this group,” says Todd. Leadership
Communities consist of 10-12 churches that gather every six months for two years. In
their short three days together, guest speakers share how externally focused ministry is
working around the country and church leaders describe their own models. Hope staff
asked a lot of questions from other participating churches in the Leadership Community,
learning from others, and sharing their own successes, surprises, and challenges.
Participating in the Leadership Community, Todd says, “helped us flesh out a mission,
plan and goals that would have taken a long time to develop.”
Moreover, simply spending time together in a shared learning experience helped to bond
together Hope staff and key volunteer leaders, solidifying the group’s passion and vision.
During their time at the Leadership Network gatherings, the group would build six-month
action plans and be held accountable for the plans. They also invested time reading books
on leadership and community involvement models. Out of their time together came a
leadership structure to support their goal of numerous community partnerships and a
model of ministry to the school. They called this structure “Bridges of Hope;” this also
became the name of their outreach ministry.
Step Two: Everything Externally Focused
For a time, Hope Church focused on teaching and preaching what it means to be an
Externally Focused Church. There were Sunday sermons centered on serving the poor, as
well as teaching in Adult Sunday School classes and small groups. They developed a
three-prong approach to teaching the church’s mission: “inward” church body-building,
“outward” missional living and “upward” worship to God.
Step Three: Partner & Present Opportunity
Having focus groups with city leaders and interaction with social workers helped give the
leadership at Hope a real sense of the city’s needs. The groups also laid the foundation
for future partnerships. First the church collaborated with agencies with which they had
some kind of existing relationship, such as a member already working with that agency or
member passionate about the particular issue addressed by that agency. They also chose
to partner with those in close proximity to the church—starting with Oakdale Elementary
School.
To mobilize volunteers, Hope conducted a number of church-wide campaigns
encouraging large-scale participation in community service projects. One of the
campaigns accomplished at the beginning their externally focused journey was a
“Kingdom Assignment”—a national church campaign developed by Denny and Leesa
Bellesi (www.kingdomassignment.com). The premise of this campaign is the Parable of
the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30 about three servants who are given an assignment by
their Master (God) leaving them with equal sums of money. When the Master returned
He rewarded those that were faithful with the talents He had entrusted to them, banishing
the one who did nothing.
In a modern-day version of the parable, Hope gave 220 people $100 to “invest and
multiply” for community impact. Many members multiplied their money and donated it
to worthy nonprofits in the community. Others purchased supplies to accomplish special
projects with schools and community agencies. Out of their Kingdom Assignment,
several partnerships were formed between Hope and the community. It also gave
parishioners the opportunity to ‘try’ serving in the community. “It built a lot of trust and
goodwill,” notes Todd.
Sustaining the Outreach Arm
Hope Church is only a few years into its externally focused journey. Currently, funding
for Bridges of Hope projects is budgeted annually at $25,000. The money comes from a
portion of the church’s general funds as well as designated gifts. Hope has not added a
staff position to oversee Bridges of Hope. The Adult Ministries Pastor’s responsibilities,
though, have been modified to include an emphasis on community involvement.
Additionally, a lay leadership team has been established to oversee Bridges of Hope. It is
led primarily by Todd and Trudy Christianson (though the senior pastor also serves on
this committee). Hope’s leaders have also asked existing church ministries to adopt
community service as a part of their overall planning.
To further support and sustain Bridges of Hope’s community partnerships and initiatives,
Todd reports that three new teams have been formed to handle specific tasks. Each
reports to the Bridges of Hope committee. These teams include:
1. Dock Builders – Leaders who initiate and maintain the church’s relationships
with partnering agencies;
2. Communications – Leaders who help the church communicate the Externally
Focused vision and opportunities for service to the congregation through
announcements, teaching, training, web page, bulletin boards, and preaching;
and
3. Team Leaders – Individuals willing to invite people to join them in serving,
provide preparation through training and prayer, then lead the groups in
serving, and facilitate evaluation and feedback.
Challenges
As Hope strengthens its ministry to the community, church leaders find that focusing on
the right partnerships and developing those relationships is key. “Opportunities for our
future seem to be unlimited. The city leaders are offering more opportunities than we
have the capacity to accept,” explains John Larson, Senior Pastor. The church wants to
strengthen and deepen partnerships, helping them choose better where to have impact.
They find one of the best relationships to maintain and grow is work in the school close
to them. People coming to and from church each week not only pass the church, they pass
Oakdale Elementary as well. One of the recent results of helping those close to home
included a successful Summer of Service campaign (2006). Hope’s leaders had a three
month goal to see 250 people give four hours each of service to the community through
raising funds for backpacks, washing windows and painting door frames at the local
school. They exceeded their goal as 306 people participated and 1,355 hours were served.
They also try to deepen partnerships where their lay-leadership is personally passionate.
“We have a lady who was very passionate about getting the blood mobile on our church
site. She is now a liaison and building our partnership with the American Red Cross,”
says Todd.
Training of volunteers for long-term engagement is a challenge. “We are currently
working on training more leaders and recently had an Externally Focused Church
Seminar, where Eric Swanson came and spoke,” says Todd.
Internal Benefits of an External Focus:
Senior Pastor John Larson says they have had a surprising internal benefit to their
external volunteer activities. He explains, “For some reason we have struggled less with
needing volunteers to run our internally focused ministries as we added externally
focused opportunities to serve.” He’s not quite sure where to attribute that unexpected
blessing, but he does know that people are more passionate about serving—inside or out.
“Many people have said to me (about our external ministry): ‘This is the kind of ministry
that I have been waiting for!’ I take that to mean that they were uncomfortable with all
the service energy going internally when the see so many external needs. It was like we
were giving them permission to do what their hearts were calling them to do,” he
supposes.
John admits that serving outside the walls of the church has personally stretched him as a
leader and a Christian. Interacting with people outside his own comfort zone has forced
him to rethink faith and get back a deeper appreciation of what he has. “Looks like
Philemon 1:6 is true!” surmises John. “I pray that you may be active in sharing your
faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ."
Krista Petty is a coach for Externally Focused Churches and writer for Group Publishing and
Leadership Network. Most recently, she served as editor of The Externally Focused Church (Group
Publishing) and Living a Life on Loan (Standard Publishing). She resides in Johnstown, Colorado
with her husband, Steve, and three great kids. The Petty's are active members of LifeBridge
Christian Church. Comments or questions for the author can be sent to krista_petty@msn.com.
Bridges of Hope
Advisory team, which is primarily lay-led, but includes Senior Pastor and Adult Ministries Pastor.
They help launch vision and instigate church-wide service events. Other teams report to this team.
Dock Builders
Communications
Team Leaders
These are individual
volunteers that are liaisons
between the church and
community organizations.
They help develop service
opportunities and deepen
partnerships
These are individual that
help facilitate the externally
focused vision through
various communication
venues.
These are individuals who
invite people to join them in
serving, provide training and
prayer, and then lead
groups to serve in projects.
School
A group of helpful people who do what they say they will do! They
have come to our rescue in times of need and are a constant
source of support to our families and students. They save us
thousands of dollars every year!
3 Views
Church Members
What is Bridges of Hope?
Here are three different points of view
on Hope Church’s community
ministries.
Bridges of Hope is new and vibrant part of our church that helps us
get in the community and serve. We are now connected into the
community!
City
Bridges of Hope has given us insight and leadership. They are a
trusted group of people that will help strengthen our community.