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Loving Your Community: Proven Practices for Community-Based Outreach Ministry Paperback – January 21, 2020

by Stephen Viars (Author)

4.7 51 ratings

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Are you and your church making a difference in your community? Are you meeting needs in a positive, proactive, and loving way? Too often when churches are presented with a need outside their walls, they operate on the principle of "Say no unless you have to say yes."

Don't want that to be your church's legacy in your community? Drawing on more than 30 years of service to the community surrounding Faith Church in Indiana, pastor Stephen Viars shows you how to develop a dynamic, giving relationship with your community, one in which your natural response to needs is "Yes! How can we help?"

No matter the size, location, demographics, or issues in your community, the approach found in this practical book will help you improve people's lives, draw them into productive conversation about the hope you have in Christ, and glorify God.

Print length

234 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Baker Books
Publication date

January 21, 2020
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.55 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

080109478X
ISBN-13

978-0801094781
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Are you and your church making a difference in your community?

Too often when churches are presented with a need outside their walls, they operate on the principle of "say no unless you have to say yes." Don't want that to be your church's legacy? Drawing on more than thirty years of service to the community surrounding Faith Church in Indiana, pastor Stephen Viars shows you how to develop a dynamic, giving relationship with your community, one in which your natural response to needs is "Yes! How can we help?"

No matter the size, location, demographics, or issues of your community, the approach found in this practical book will help you improve people's lives, draw them into productive conversation about the hope you have in Christ, and glorify God.

"What does it look like for a church to take the gospel to the streets? Read and apply Loving Your Community for a theologically sound, practically proven, and narrative-rich approach to making a Christ-centered difference in your community."--Bob Kellemen, PhD, vice president and academic dean, Faith Bible Seminary; author of twenty books, including Gospel Conversations: How to Care Like Christ

"If you're tired of running the church like a cruise ship and would love to equip and launch your people back into the community, then get this book and read it with your leaders!"--Brad Bigney, lead pastor of Grace Fellowship Church, ACBC-certified counselor, conference speaker, and author of Gospel Treason

Stephen Viars has served as a pastor and biblical counselor at Faith Church and Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries in Lafayette, Indiana, since 1987. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, colleges, and seminaries in the United States and abroad. In addition to overseeing the staff and ministries at Faith, he also serves on the boards of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, the Biblical Counseling Coalition, Vision of Hope, and the Faith Community Development Corporation. The author of Putting Your Past in Its Place, he and his wife, Kris, have been married since 1982 and have three children and three grandchildren.

About the Author

Stephen Viars has served as a pastor and biblical counselor at Faith Church and Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries in Lafayette, Indiana, since 1987. A frequent speaker at conferences, colleges, and seminaries, he also serves on the boards of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, the Biblical Counseling Coalition, Vision of Hope, and the Faith Community Development Corporation. The author of Loving Your Community, he and his wife, Kris, have three children and four grandchildren.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Baker Books (January 21, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 234 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 080109478X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0801094781
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.55 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #304,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #179 in Christian Church Growth (Books)
- #563 in Evangelism
- #6,294 in Christian Spiritual Growth (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.7 51 ratings

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4.7 out of 5

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A. Starkey

Lots of good ideas

Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2023

Verified Purchase

Although this book is geared for bigger churches, it does have a lot of helpful hints for going out into the church community to serve the needs of people.

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Mark Blackwell

Awesome book for giving back to my community

Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2022

Verified Purchase

To advance my community and others in recovery this book helps to get you involved. It helps with Gods will for myself.

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John

This is for everyone!

Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2021

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If you in a community program or not!

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J. Porcelli

Not For Small Churches

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2020

Verified Purchase

As i read through this book i found that it’s really about how a medium to large church does ministry. Which, i would think, they have already know.
As i belong to a small church and i was looking for some ideas on how to minister in my area (small tone), i was disappointed in the examples and testimonies given by the author.
Yet, i did get some ideas and thoughts on ministry to my community, it wasn’t worth the cost of buying the book.

5 people found this helpful

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travis.heystek

Great Read

Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2020

I’ve been looking forward to reading this book for quite a bit now. I received the book through Baker Books Bloggers about 2 months ago, just about the time the two churches I serve in were identifying community outreach as a significant need. I was finally able to sit down and read this book over the last 2 weeks, and it was a great read. It’s been hard to find anything wrong with this book. It’s encouraging and challenging while maintaining realistic expectations for scalable ministry. A lot of the time you read these books and walk away thinking, “Wow! That’s really cool idea…too bad we could never afford to do that.” And, sure, there were moments where that feeling creeps in a bit, but Viars is good in reminding that ministry has to be scaled for your church and your community. Nears the end of the book he talks about the importance to “walk before you run.” Some people would say that isn’t moving forward in faith, but quite the opposite Viars paints a picture of optimistic faithfulness while still keeping reasonable expectations for human limitation. Yes, we trust God and follow God’s directions wherever that may be, but we work within the parameters we’re given.
My only complaint about this book is the lack of “small-church” application. I know that may seem contradictory to what I was just saying, but I don’t think it is. While Viars helps small churches understand they don’t have to feel guilty or hopeless if they can’t match his ministry, he doesn’t give a lot of examples for where a small congregation (25-50) can start. The church I serve is small church in a rural setting so the jump to a large urban example feels like lightyears. I don’t expect Viars to offer “small-scale” examples from his experience, but it would have been awesome to see him include some examples in his epilogue aside from counseling based and college ministries similar to his own in different contexts. I know there are great examples of small urban churches doing awesome ministries, just as there are small rural ministries. I’d love to see some of those examples as well. Make no mistake, I’m already passing this book on and will be recommending it to our church leadership as we push forward, but I know a lot of my discussion will require helping them pull out principles rather than specific examples. I give this book a solid 4 of 5 stars.

One person found this helpful

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Jon Gibson

A helpful handbook and storybook to love your community

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2020

Although Jesus’ command to his disciples was to GO and make disciples, it seems that the Church has a tendency to forget the GO part and instead remain tied to a building. The expectation has become that if the Church would just hold events in a building, people will flock there to be a part of them. Christians can become insular and shortsighted, more concerned with comfort, security, and convenience than in actually taking Jesus’ command seriously.

In his book “Loving Your Community,” Stephen Viars shares stories from his own experience and the experience of his church. He talks about how they have practiced loving their community through various means, encouraging his readers to do the same.

While it seems that the gap between the Church and the culture has grown ever wider, Christians won’t win anyone over with the message of hatred, anger, pride, self-righteousness, or apathy. So, Viars suggests loving those who don’t consider themselves Christians. That usually involves going outside the doors of the church.

Viars is clear that there is work to be done in order to better understand the needs of your community. Too often, Christians simply make assumptions about what the community needs or project those needs without fully researching or spending time determining what they are. The experience of Viars and Faith Church, the church he pastors, is that it is necessary to get your hands dirty and find this out by talking to real people in real situations.

The experiences that Viars describes in the book can easily be intimidating, especially for those who are starting at the ground level or below. But Viars is pretty candid about that as well, talking about how long it has taken his church to come to the place where they are loving their community well and making a difference.

Every chapter ends with two sets of questions, one for personal reflection and one for group discussion. These questions help to think about next steps, not only for yourself but for your church and any group with whom you might be reading and discussing this book. There are also accounts from people from Faith Church who have been impacted along the way by the various things that Faith Church did to love their community. It is helpful to hear these stories from voices other than Viars, the voices of those who have been personally affected.

As I read through this book, it was hard not to dream about what could be in the future for my own church and the community in which we serve and minister. I’ve always thought that we should only dream dreams that are big enough that only God can accomplish them. Stephen Viars gives us a picture of how to dream big and just how awesome God is as he has grown this church in loving their community.

(This review is based upon a copy of this book which was provided free of charge by Baker Books. These opinions are my own; I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated for this review.)

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