Training · Leading Your Group
Impact Events
One event where your whole group loves somebody outside the group in a way they can touch
An impact event is your group loving the people around you and demonstrating grace together. It carries out the mission of Christ, builds unity in your group, and shows your people what serving and mission look like.
This is one of the most powerful tools you have as a leader. Use it and you will find it changes your group, and it changes you.
What a win looks like
A great impact event is not a world changing event. It is an event that demonstrates the love of Christ, through the love of your group, in a tangible way, to someone outside the group.
It can impact one person or thousands. What matters is that it is a tangible demonstration of God’s love, made by the entire group.
What to keep in mind
Group involvement. This is about the group loving someone, not you loving someone. Find something most of your group can be part of.
Time. An impact event is not writing a check. It takes personal investment of time and energy.
Outside the group. The person impacted has to be outside the group. That does not mean stop caring for your own people. This is above and beyond that care. It is taking the love you share with each other out to the world around you.
Teamwork. Do not rebuild the wheel. Come alongside people who are already serving instead of doing it alone or starting something new.
Quality. Everything we do communicates something about the God we serve.
- Be prepared. Bring your group in on it so you are completely prepared.
- Be on time. Do not start the event late and do not show up late.
- Be obvious. Make sure nobody has to hunt for you. Give people a way to find you.
Principles
Continued investment. If you find something your group can keep doing, both the effectiveness of the impact and the investment of your group go up.
Personal connection. Impact events always impact lives, but some are more personal. The ones where you build a relationship with the person you are helping are the most powerful. That is why we push people to look at the lives of their own friends before strangers.
Unchanged. Christ keeps loving us even when we struggle to change. Your impact event is about loving people, not changing people or changing the world. Whatever the response is, keep loving. Do not let a lack of response or acknowledgement deter you.
Expensive impact. Impact events may take money from your group, but try to keep the cost low. Share the cost across the group, and get creative about how you help.
The process
- Find where to start. Ask yourself, what is hard right now for our friends? If nothing comes to mind for your friends or coworkers, look at the city around you. What is going on in your building, on your street? If you are still stuck, talk to the Outreach Director at Hoboken Grace.
- Pick who leads it. Select one or two people in your group to manage the event.
- Submit the event. Fill out the event submission form.
- Plan it. Work out the details and assign tasks to group members.
- Invite and hype it. Make sure you are inviting the friends who would never have heard about it otherwise.
TODO(nick): Two things in the process are probably stale. The handout points step three at
www.hobokengrace.com/eventsubmission.html, and step one says to talk to the Outreach Director at Hoboken Grace. Is either still current? I left both in without a link.