LIFE Outreach | Stone County
As seen on season 9 of “America’s Got Talent” the Tri-County Baptist Association presents the Real Encounter Stunt Show. Real Encounter is a high-octane show made up of some of the best action sport athletes in the nation. You will see professional stuntmen who have perfected their skills in the areas of Moto Stunting, Mountain Bike Stunting and BMX. Real Encounter is not only captivating with continuous high-flying action but the founder, Brad Bennett, will be sharing a life-changing message of Hope! The show will be held at the Reeds Spring High School on Wednesday, April 24 at 6:30pm. Real Encounter Stunt Show is a free public event and is open to all ages. You do not want to miss it!
What does LIFE Outreach | Stone County look like?
After consultation, coaching, and preparation with Tri-County pastors and lay people in Stone County, Missouri Baptist Convention missionaries will join us for four days:
- Sunday April 21: In the Sunday morning service, your church can have an MBC missionary come to your church to speak on discipleship. In the afternoon at a central location, people from all our Stone County churches will gather in one place to be equipped with a foundation, framework, and approach for biblical disciple-making.
- Monday – Wednesday (April 22-24): We will hold character-based public-school assemblies at High Schools all across Stone County. These assemblies meet the needs of our local schools and are an opportunity to invite students and families to a community-wide evangelistic event (“Harvest Night”) held at Reeds Spring High School on April 24 (Wednesday night). Character Assembly dates/times/locations:
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- Monday April 22: Blue Eye High, 9 am
- Tuesday April 23; Crane High/Jr High, 1:15 pm; Hurley High, 2:45 pm
- Wednesday April 24: Galena High, 9 am; Reeds Spring Middle, 1 pm; Reeds Spring High, 2:30 pm
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- Wednesday Night (April 24): LIFE Outreach culminates at an event (“Harvest Night”) held at Reeds Spring High School. Here, the disciple-makers who were equipped earlier in the week encourage and debrief those deciding to follow Christ.
Team Leaders
LIFE Outreach Stone County works through six teams: Prayer, School Assembly, Event, Publicity, Encouragers, and First Response. Each team is led by a Team Leader who is responsible for gathering a group of volunteers to serve together in the implementation of details. Team Leaders will be responsible for specific details in their area of the event, with each team communicating regularly regarding the progress of the outlined action items.
Prayer Team: This team will develop and implement the Church-wide prayer strategy.
- Coordinate a prayer walk on each school campus holding an assembly.
- Develop a weekly prayer focus to be used in Sunday morning worship for the month prior to the training and Event.
- Coordinate a church-wide day of prayer and fasting for the LIFE Outreach training and event.
- Coordinate a prayer walk of the LIFE Outreach event night facility.
- Enlist adults to pray during the LIFE Outreach event.
School Assembly Team: Responsible for scheduling and promoting school assemblies. The team leader should have a good relationship with school officials.
- Organize a list of Schools within 30 miles of your Harvest Night venue.
- Meet with principals and other administration to offer a quality character-based assembly that will meet their needs as school leaders. Provide them with information (content and references) at the time of the first meeting.
Note: Communicate clearly that the assemblies are a gift to the community from your Church and that there is no cost to the school.
Further details:
- Each assembly is 45 min in length, with an additional 30 minutes allotment for load-in and 30 minutes for load-out. (Students moving into and out of assembly area is additional time)
- Motorcycle and/or BMX Bicycle will be used on the gym floor or auditorium stage. Protective mats are provided for protection.
- Audio equipment is provided.
- Schedule school assemblies to allow 2 to 3 assemblies a day, calculating a 2-hour time frame for each assembly, plus drive time between assembly locations.
- Follow up the verbal conversation with an email confirmation of each assembly, including time allotment. When you receive written confirmation back from each school, send a copy to the MBC Making Disciples Event Planning office: shedger@mobaptist.org.
- Enlist 2 men to assist with load-in and load-out at each Assembly.
- Prepare the invitation postcards (provided by Real Encounter) with informational labels regarding the Life Outreach event. Enlist volunteers to distribute the postcards at the conclusion of each assembly.
NOTE: 2 weeks prior to the LIFE Outreach, contact each Principal to confirm the upcoming assembly.
Event Team: Responsible for the details of the LIFE Outreach event night.
- Secure venue site for the Life Outreach harvest night. (Typically, the school with the largest gymnasium seating capacity.)
- Anticipate a crowd of 1,000 – 3,000 people in attendance. The more school assemblies scheduled, the higher the attendance.
- Obtain the facility for no later than 3:00 p.m. Wednesday for set-up. This set-up process takes a minimum of 2 hours to complete. Ideally, the final Assembly conducted on Wednesday will be scheduled in the same space, allowing the team to remain on site.
- Ensure venue meets power requirements needed for production.
- Organize volunteer or professional security for the event for both indoors and outdoors.
- Provide barricades for exhibition areas to protect both spectators and performers.
- Caution tape and barricades are required.
- Secure 2 industrial gas-powered lighting trees for outside exhibition.
NOTE: 2 weeks prior to the LIFE Outreach, conduct a final site visit to the event location confirming the time, logistics and contact person for set-up.
If Motorcycle Stunting is booked:
- Ensure space of 50’ x 150’ on pavement or asphalt for the exhibition.
- Provide 2 industrial gas-powered lighting trees for exhibition area.
- Provide barricades around exhibition area to protect both spectators and riders.
If a BMX Team is booked:
- Indoor BMX exhibition will require gym floor space of approx. 100 feet in length. BMX Team will provide a self-contained ramp system and mats to protect the floor.
- Outdoor BMX exhibition will require a minimum of 150 feet in length on pavement. In the event no pavement is available, contact the MBC office for complete instructions.
- Provide barricades to protect both spectators and riders.
- Provide 2 generated industrial lighting trees for exhibition area.
Publicity Team: Responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive communication strategy for the Life Outreach Training and Event.
- Calculate costs of advertising materials. Graphics for social media advertising as well as posters/postcards will be provided. (Posters provided are designed to fit on students’ lockers.)
- Plan and implement the best form of communicating the event to the community, accessing social media, mail-outs, posters, banners, postcards mailouts, radio, TV and news outlets.
- Invite local newspaper, radio, and television stations to cover the event from preparation to finish.
- Consider purchasing Real Encounter T-shirts for the purpose of advertising and to be worn by volunteers. Please contact Sandee Hedger for ordering.
Follow the communication schedule:
- 12 weeks out – begin promotion to all local churches.
- 4 weeks out – publicity to the community.
- 2 weeks out – publicity in the schools.
Encourager Team: Responsible for recruitment of participants in the Sunday evening Life Outreach Training event and the enlistment of participants to serve as Encouragers for the Life Outreach harvest night.
- Enlist a minimum of 100 adult volunteers to participate as Encouragers for the Life Outreach. The Encouragers will be equipped by the MBC Making Disciples team during the Sunday night training event.
- Designate a specific location with adequate space for the encourager time during the outreach event. The Encouragers will debrief with those making a decision during the invitation.
- Formulate a comprehensive follow-up procedure for those making decisions.
- Evaluate the decision cards at the conclusion of the event. If multiple Churches are involved, distribute the cards with specific church affiliation to that church. If no church affiliation is reflected on the information card, seek information regarding a close friend of the person making a decision for Christ, then pass the contact information to the friend’s church leadership. In the event there is no friend or affiliation, give to the nearest participating church by address.
- Anticipate 20% in attendance coming forward at invitation time. (You will need a minimum of 100 encouragers.)
- Purchase Bibles & any other disciple-making materials the Lord has directed to be given to each person responding at the invitation time.
- Develop cards with a listing of local churches, Pastors, Student Ministers and service times to be given to each person responding to the Gospel.
- Decision Cards are provided by the MBC.
- Provide pens/pencils/clipboards
- Provide name badges or other identification source for each Encourager.
- The MBC Making Disciples team will be training your Encouragers in what conversations are beyond their role and the referral process should a conversation deem necessary to involve mandatory reporting or professional counseling.
NOTE: We follow the Biblical mandate of “women counsel women and men counsel men” and ensure that at no time is an Encourager alone with any person (especially students) in a secluded area.
First Response Team: Responsible for developing and implementing a strategy for followup on each person who has responded to the Gospel during the Life Outreach Event.
- Gather and train a large team of volunteers in how to make productive phone calls to each person who completed a Decision Card. The responses on the cards will be varied from prayer requests, re-dedication and repentance of sin. It is vital that each person is encouraged accordingly.
- Plan for the team to gather immediately following the Event to sort and categorize the Decision Cards according the decisions recorded.
- Gather the Team on Thursday to make phone calls to each person, leaving voice messages when necessary. It is vital that each person reflected on the decision cards receive prompt contact from a disciple-making believer and should be completed on Thursday.
- Provide note cards and stamps for Team members to write and address a note following each phone conversation for a “second step” follow-up. Mail the cards on Friday.
- Plan for your team members to meet and host guests from the Life Outreach Event on Sunday morning for worship, meeting them at the door, escorting them to Worship Service and sitting with them. BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS will be the key to long-term disciple-making.
- Host a LIFE Outreach follow-up celebration. Invite all those that made a decision to a celebration gathering. This will be an opportunity for new folks to get to know you and the churches involved in the follow-up process. This would be a good opportunity to talk through next steps. It would be beneficial to hold the celebration possibly on a Sunday night within two weeks of the LIFE Outreach.
- Schedule New Believer classes and a Baptism Sunday for those who have received Christ.