One of the most significant obstacles we face in ministering to hurting kids and children from disrupted homes is that they don’t tend to come to our churches. Statistically, children from ANY type of family other than married biological parents are significantly less likely to attend church. So, if you’re serious about ministering to these hurting kids, and there are tons of them no matter where you live, you have to get outside the walls of your church and take your ministry to them. Fortunately, through my work with these kids and speaking at various conferences, I have been fortunate enough to meet a handful of people who are doing just that. Rachael Groll is the Children’s Ministry Director at Living Waters Church (http://www.livingwaterschurch.tv/) in Meadville, PA. She has started a program through her church that goes out and finds these kids where they live and ministers to them. Rachael was kind enough to answer some questions for us about the ministry she started, why it works and how it impacts the kids she is ministering to and the church. ---------------- Q: Hi Rachael. Why don’t you start by telling a little bit about yourself and your church? A: HI Wayne. Thanks for the opportunity. I currently am the Children’s Director at Living Waters Church. I oversee all programming of children, from birth through age twelve. This includes our Bus Ministry, Sidewalk Ministry, Wednesday night programming, and Sunday morning services. Living Waters is unique in our area, in that our focus is really to seek out the lost and bring them Jesus. You see this throughout every area of our church. We have a mobile food pantry, evangelism teams that go out into the community, a foster and adoption ministry, and we host several community events throughout the year. One of the things we focus on as a staff is really getting outside the four walls, and ministering to the community. ---------------- Q: I want to focus on your efforts to take the message of Christ to the kids in your community. Let’s start with a more general discussion then will move into some of the nitty gritty of doing this type of ministry. First of all, what is the name of the ministry, and how would you describe it in a sentence or two? A: We call it “Sidewalk Sunday School.” In a nutshell, we take the same program that we do on a Sunday morning, and we take it to the streets. We seek out the kids that don’t otherwise have an opportunity to attend church. ---------------- Q: When did you start that ministry? A: We started doing Sidewalk Sunday School last June. So we have been doing it a little over a year. ---------------- Q: Why did you decide to start this type of ministry? A: Most importantly because Christ commands it! The Bible talks about being salt and light. We strive to take the light into the darkness, instead of running from it. When we first started our sidewalk ministry, we targeted the roughest neighborhood in our area. Many people tried to discourage us because of the amount of drugs and violence there. However, that is where God called us, and that is why they need Jesus. Yes there have been challenges. But there has been amazing transformation in the community and the lives of the people that live there. Secondly, some kids will otherwise NEVER hear the gospel. I never can quite comprehend this, but every site, every year, we find kids that have never heard the gospel before. These kids are growing up in situations where the enemy most certainly has his hands on them. It is our responsibility to share the truth with them. The first step to any kind of lasting change in their situations is Jesus. ---------------- Q: You mentioned challenges, what are some of the challenges you’ve faced? A: Initially, our challenges were circumstantial. The logistics of figuring out how to rewrite our curriculum so it fit the mobile format. Figuring out how to get sound with no power. Getting volunteers on board with a vision when they had no idea what I was talking about. The temperamental Pennsylvania weather. However, once we got started, and were able to start sharing what God was doing, the church quickly jumped on board. We were almost finished with our summer semester when we got a phone call from the Housing Authority, telling us we were no longer allowed to come down to the project. There really was no explanation or warning. They basically told us that we were not allowed to have any “religious” programming in the neighborhood because it was Federal Property. We knew that wasn’t legal, so we geared up for a fight. The kids and families were too important to us. We couldn’t just walk away. We contacted Alliance Defending Freedom, and they helped us gain access back into the community. Link to article about legal battle: http://christiannews.net/2015/05/03/church-regains-right-to-serve-housing-project-after-initially-booted-for-being-religious/ ---------------- Q: How effective is this type of ministry? A: It’s very effective. The bus that we send out on Sunday mornings to get kids for church will, at most, gather about 40 kids from the neighborhood. However, when we go into the community, we see close to 150 kids. Therefore, if we are taking the gospel to them, instead of bringing them to us, we can reach more kids. Now that we have been in the neighborhood for more than a year, we see life transformation in some of these families. It’s a direct result of an encounter with Jesus. ---------------- Q: How would you describe the kids you are reaching? I know all kids are different and each child is unique, but give us a feel for the type of kids you’re reaching out to. What types of homes do they come from? What is their background? What are their neighborhoods like? A: This is a heartbreaking question to answer. In the church, we often support missions trips.