When we go and serve, we invest in others by sharing God’s love. At Crossings, we aim to serve the needs of God’s people and glorify him through our actions.

Outreach, according to Acts 1:8, takes us to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Outreach can also include the people right around you, even if they are from a similar socioeconomic and cultural background.  

Looking for some ideas of ways to go out into your community and serve others? Here are 100 ways to do just that!

1. Choose one or two neighbors or coworkers who don't know Jesus and pray for them by name every day. 
2. Do a prayer walk through your neighborhood, praying that every family and person will come to know Christ. 
3. Get involved in community activities like a PTA or neighborhood association, and be known by love in every circle. 
4. Offer practical services like car washing or lawn mowing to a family in need near you. 
5. Do a prayer walk at your workplace. Arrive early and pray over each desk, cubicle, office, or work area for people to come to know Christ. 
6. Pray over your local police department, fire department, and over other first responders. 
7. Learn more about evangelism and how to share your faith. 
8. Have an open house to get to know your neighbors. You can deliver the invitations by hand so that you can connect in person. 
9. Volunteer at a daycare center and read to the children. 
10. Invite your neighbors or coworkers to start a book club together to discuss popular books in hopes of using these as a bridge to the gospel. 
11. Hold a garage sale and give the proceeds to a worthwhile local ministry. 
12. Volunteer to be a chaperone for public school events like field trips, dances or prom.
13. Collect used clothes, furniture, and appliances and recycle them by donating them to local ministries or selling them to benefit these ministries.
14. Join or develop a ministry to the hearing impaired, handicapped, or other physically challenged people.
15. Establish a guest room in your house to entertain visitors or to help people needing lodging during job transitions.
16. Start a weekly prayer meeting with other Christians at your place of work.
17. Read a book on evangelism. 
18. Use holidays to sponsor parties that allow you to get to know your neighbors.
19. Create a survey of questions designed to help you understand the spiritual perspectives of your neighbors; offer a barbecue to thank them for participating.
20. Take a neighbor out to lunch simply to get to know them. 
21. Start a Bible study at work or in your neighborhood to ask "Who is Jesus?" and read the Gospel of John. 
22. Invite your friends, neighbors, or coworkers to volunteer with you! Sometimes people get spiritually interested by getting involved in service. 
23. Leave a piece of evangelistic literature for a waiter or waitress—along with a generous tip! 
24. Invite a friend to go to the movies with you, and then over coffee try to understand your friend's outlook on life by discussing the movie. This helps to reach out to your "Judea" or people in your same culture but in the larger region.
25. Participate in the Christmas Outreach starting in November! 
26. Become a volunteer at Crossings Community Center to connect with others in the community and demonstrate God’s love to them.
27. Take a course at a local university in philosophy, world religions, or some other subject that could provoke evangelistic conversations. 
28. Volunteer to assist with a regional conference designed to help area churches become more effective in outreach.
29. Start a file of newspaper articles on a local community concern that you want to make a special focus of prayer or involvement. 
30. Get training and then volunteer as a counselor for a Billy Graham Evangelistic Association outreach or other evangelistic events in your area. 
31. Run for office on a school committee or other regionally significant community leadership. 
32. Get involved in regional outreaches where you partner with other churches to affect the community.
33. Get involved in a local food pantry for underprivileged families. 
34. Volunteer at a local crisis pregnancy center or hotline. 
35. Hold a dinner in your area for people of your profession and have a Christian from your profession speak. 
36. Write a letter to encourage local political leaders and offer your prayer support. 
37. Get involved once or twice per month visiting the lonely at local long-term care facilities or nursing homes.
38. Voluntarily clean the public restrooms in your community.
39. Become a helper in a ministry for those who struggle with addiction. 
40. Volunteer to get involved in projects designed to spruce up the community—plant flowers, rake leaves, paint, etc.
41. Buy some food vouchers at a local restaurant to give to homeless people.
42. Get a list of school principals and start a regular prayer routine for these key leaders. 
43. Collect loose coins over the course of the month and then donate the total to local Christian ministries. 
44. Get involved in the prevention of spouse or child abuse in your community. 
45. Do a clothing drive in your area, collecting clothes that will be delivered to a city ministry to the homeless. 
46. Memorize Luke 19:10 and create a list of the potential lost people you'd like to reach in your area. Reach out to your "Samaria" (outreach that is cross-cultural, but near to home; geographically close, but culturally distant). 
47. Visit a foreign food restaurant and try to engage the owners in conversation about their country of origin, their culture, and their faith. 
48. Become a host family for an international student ministry at a local university.
49. Volunteer to serve one day a month at a shelter for the homeless,
50. Become a teacher in an English language learner program (ELL).
51. Serve with Crossings Prison Ministry or another such ministry. 
52. Join hands with an urban ministry as a volunteer tutor for students working toward a GED (graduate equivalency degree).
53. Visit a church that worships in a different language to get a sense of the international nature of the body of Christ. 
54. Start a pen pal ministry with prisoners at a local correctional facility. 
55. Go to the local school department to find out the languages spoken in your school system. 
56. Invite a first-generation American coworker to your home for a meal, 
57. Become a "big brother" or "big sister" to a child with only one parent. 
58. Get involved in weekly or monthly prison outreach ministry or on-site Bible study.
59. Visit and become familiar with local ministries that do work that is "cross-cultural" to you. 
60. Do a prayer walk in cross-cultural urban areas. 
61. Visit leaders at a Muslim mosque, Hindu temple, or Buddhist temple in an effort to understand what other religions believe and teach; invite them to come to visit your church.
62. Read Matthew 25 and try to identify one project per month that you can do for the types of people Jesus lists. 
63. Attend a local cultural or ethnically distinct event in an effort to understand the cultures around your area. 
64. Memorize 1 John 3:16-18. 
65. Attend a class or seminar offering training in cultural understanding. 
66. Join the Crossings Disaster Response Team (CDRT) to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those affected by natural disasters.
67. Develop your own "welcome wagon" ministry to newly arrived immigrants in your community, helping them with shopping, driving or daily routines. 
68. Prayerfully hang out in the area of the supermarket specializing in ethnic food and ask God to help you meet people.
69. Invite some people from other cultures into a discussion on the question, "What do you think a Christian is?" 
70. Raise money and take a group of underprivileged kids to a sporting event.
71. Pray for the country on the label of your clothes.
72. Get involved in Safe Families ministry at Crossings by learning more about it or volunteering. 
73. Get a copy of Operation World to serve as your reference book for praying for the nations of the world. 
74. Get an up-to-date map of the world and post it prominently to provoke prayer.
75. Listen to the BBC or other world news report and pray through the countries mentioned. 
76. Buy a book or take a class designed to help you understand other world religions.
77. Pray for a week for the Muslim countries in North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and especially the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia. 
    
78. Fast and set aside the money saved for ministry with the world's starving people (see Isaiah 58:6-10).
79. Look into short-term (one to two weeks) mission opportunities in another part of the world.
80. Learn a foreign language or at least some greetings or phrases in locally spoken languages. 
81. Invite someone who works internationally to your home and learn about his or her work.
82. Prayerfully consider donating to Crossings Community Clinic or volunteer your time and skills. 
83. Memorize Acts 1:8. 
84. Coordinate a fundraiser (a run or swim or other sponsored event) for ministries dedicated to serving the world's poor or hungry. 
85. Start praying daily for an influential world leader who you want to come to know Jesus Christ. 
86. Pray for a week for the world's largest Hindu countries, India and Nepal. 
87. Evaluate your budget and try to find about $30 per month that you could set aside to adopt a child through World Vision, Compassion, or some other Christian ministry to orphans, or sponsor a child through Roatan Horizons for Samuel Raymond Christian School (through Deborah and Sarah Hunnicutt).
88. Call a missionary or an international Christian worker you know simply to offer prayer and encouragement.
89. Pray for Crossings missionaries, their families, and their ministries. 
90. Pray for the Lord to "send out workers" (Matthew 9:36-38) to the peoples of the earth who have no knowledge of Jesus Christ.
91. Look ahead to your retirement and start asking, “Is there someplace in the world that I could serve using my accumulated experience and skills?”
92. Memorize Matthew 28:18-20.
93. Get involved in evangelistic outreach at sporting events that involve international teams. 
94. Pray for God's Word to go forward in the world's most populous nation, China, with over 1.3 billion people. 
95. Organize a prayer meeting specifically dedicated to praying for five or six foreign countries (spice it up by asking people to bring international foods). 
96. Pray for your children to be open to wherever God might call them in service around the world.
97. Explore volunteer opportunities at Crossings Community Center and get involved.
98. Take the spiritual gifts assessment available online to better understand where you can serve and use your God-given gifts. 
99. Pray for our local and global missions partners and their reach in the community and beyond.
100. Look into a three-to-six-month leave of absence from your work in which you could serve in another country.

You can learn more about how you can invest in others by serving here or by exploring local and global outreach opportunities through Crossings Missions Ministry.