Your Church and Common Cupboard

This article first apeared in our newsletter and in Keith's blog - NotesAlongTheWay.blogspot.com

In this issue I would like to expand a little on how I envision Common Cupboard and your church working together to touch our community with God's love. I will endeavor to be brief here, but I would love to sit down and have a cup of coffee with you one day and talk about it more! - Keith 704-458-3744 Keith@thecommonplace.org

Some time ago I was a pastor at a local church. It was my passion to teach the people of God. I taught a lot of things from our identity in Christ to personal evangelism, the books of the Bible to the power of the cross. My main desire was to see people serving God fully and to equip the congregation to reach out effectively to their friends, neighbors, and the community at large. I did a lot of talking. But, with all my teaching I couldn't quite get either myself or my congregation motivated to reach outside the four walls of our church on a sustained regular basis.

As I pondered this one spring, I had a rather simple but profound thought. What if equipping people for evangelism (or any gospel endeavor) was more than just training or teaching? I reasoned that American soldiers are provided not only with training on how to fire a rifle, but they are equipped with an actual rifle. Maybe I should think about equipping God's people that way. That's a thought that transformed a food pantry idea into Common Cupboard - a means to "equip saints to serve".

Let me share with you how we can "equip" your church to serve and draw people to Christ through intentional, active kindness through Common Cupboard.

We can provide you with a "turn key", local church based ministry. This is my number one priority for the cupboard. We want to help you develop a ministry to those in need in your community. You provide leadership, volunteers, and willing hearts to serve. We will provide you with training, groceries to give away to those you know in need, full access to an emergency food pantry for your members, and we will even help you identify people in need to serve.

You do not have to provide space in your facility to store food, boxes or bags. You do not have to spend lots of money or time to acquire groceries to give away. You do not have to constantly be running food drives or do fundraising. All you do is recruit a couple people who love God and love people to form your church's ministry. It's your church's ministry. We literally provide the rest so your church can be involved reaching out to folks in your community.

We only ask in return that your church add Common Heart to your local missions budget at an amount your board determines and that you help out with an occasional food drive. Oh, yes there is one other thing ... We ask you to keep Common Cupboard "invisible" to those you serve in the community. (See Common Cupboard Foundational Principles)

If you have folks who would like to volunteer in a supportive role at the cupboard, we can certainly use the help. If you want to provide your youth group with a service project, we could help you with that too. We want to be a resource for you in fulfilling God's call to serve "the least of these."

For more information call me. You could also click on the links below to view these brochures ...

What is Common Cupboard?

How Can We Reach Out in Practical Ways