General Youth Ministry Outreach Ideas
Youth Outreach Tools

• Host a free garage sale in your neighborhood
• Provide free lunches to firemen, construction workers and servicemen
• Provide meals, cookies, gift baskets and other treats in the teacher’s lounge at an area school
• Hand out free candy (kids) gum (adults) at a parade or mall
• Clean up yards of widows in your neighborhood
• Have a booth at local fairs and events with small gifts to give away
• Give out free bottled water at a busy traffic intersection, fair, or water park
• Plan a “Back to School Party” for foster care children. Free food, games, and a backpack/school supply giveaway
• Serve donuts and coffee to field workers during planting time. Offer sack lunches during harvest
• Distribute free donuts and hot chocolate at a city bus or transit station
• Offer rides to those who may not be able to come to church without help

Kids
Leaf Raking – This type of servanthood evangelism inspires kids to think like Jesus. Gather your rakes and off you go!

Sports Camp — Have a local sports figure to offer a clinic for your kids. Ask a local grocery for free drinks

Game Day — Have kids bring their favorite table games. Hold a tournament and give prizes

Art Day — Invite a local artists to teach art basics

Puppet Show — Take your puppet team to the city park and hold a sidewalk circus. You can also have circus-type acts, clowns, and balloons. Invite visiting children to come to your church

Deliver free pumpkins – Kids ring a doorbell (with a grown up, of course) and offer someone a free pumpkin

Music Day — Have kids bring their own instruments for a band. Have a kazoo marching band

“Green” Day — Teach about reuse, reduce, and recycle. Have kids plant trees in your community

Coordinate a paper drive – Communicate the ecology message from the standpoint that God created the world and gave us authority over it

Kite Day — Supply kite-making materials. Serve families pizza or hot dogs for lunch

Special Guests — Honor friends by having children give their guests a helium balloon

Have children bake cookies. Use simple, pictorial recipes and premeasure all ingredients. After the cookie party, have kids seal the extra cookies in plastic bags. Take children to give the cookies to a shut-in, nursing home resident, or sick child.

Host a petting zoo or a parade of your favorite stuffed animals? Maybe a live pet show?

Summer Outings: Go to the zoo, a children’s museum, or a farm. Hold a day camp with planned activities such as crafts, cooking, games, and stories.

Promotion Sunday — Get an address list of unchurched preschoolers by asking young mothers for names of unchurched mothers of preschoolers they know. On the Saturday before preschoolers are promoted to their new Sunday school class, invite churched and unchurched preschoolers and their parents to Promotion Sunday. Have them come to their new Sunday school departments, meet their new teachers, and see what they’ll be doing. Serve refreshments and give each child a school box and pencil.

Highschool
• Give some of your time to tutor children at a school in your area
• Bring free watermelon to high school football teams
• Have a free car wash for the faculty
• Start a prom dress exchange so teens in need can feel special on that big night.
• Have a “Teacher Appreciation Day” providing gift baskets
• Serve free hot breakfast to students before the school day begins

Hospital
• Provide free coffee, energy drinks, and snacks to staff and those waiting in the emergency room
• Serve healthy snacks to patients of chemotherapy
• Deliver small gifts to patients and families in the children’s ward (toys, care packages, etc.)
• Send clowns, balloon artists, magicians, etc. to visit with children

Nursing Homes & Assisted Care
• Provide fresh flowers and a “listening ear” to the residents
• Provide a church service at a nursing home
• Offer to read short devotionals and pray for residents
• Throw a “Senior Party” complete with live music, food, games, and decorations

Special Needs Kids or Adults
• Hold fun days for children with special needs and their families to relax and enjoy themselves
• Start a pen-pal program with special needs people. Write letters and send small treats

Inner City
• Sponsor a fan drive. Collect and distribute box fans in the summer
• Serve hot breakfast for the homeless in your community
• Have a women’s health fair where women can get information about health issues
• Do a community trash clean up
• Provide women in shelters hair cuts, manicures, help in writing a resume, job interview skills, computer basics, etc.
• Volunteer with Habitat for Humanity to build a home for someone in need
• Host a “Block Party” with free food, games, music, etc. for families
• Paint or fix up a run down school
• Do a door-to-door grocery giveaway
• Organize a graffiti clean up day
• Have a “Free Grass Cutting” day

The above article, “General Youth Ministry Outreach Ideas” was written by Youth Outreach Tools. The article was excerpted from www. Christianoutreachtools.com web site. April 2018.

The material is copyrighted and should not be reprinted under any other name or author. However, this material may be freely used for personal study or research purposes.

This article may not be written by an Apostolic author, but it contains many excellent principles and concepts that can be adapted to most churches. As the old saying goes, “Eat the meat. Throw away the bones.”