Stone Soup Outreach
"Stone Soup will transform your church and community," notes Pastor Tom McCoy, Senior Pastor, Thompson Station Church.
Stone Soup is designed for a local church to start and sustain ministry to and with families of children and young adults with special needs. Stone Soup includes special events, monthly community building respites, and Stone Soup on Sunday.
Get started with a one-day event, either the Stone Soup Community Fair in the spring or Holiday Camp @ Christmas at Christmas.
What is the Stone Soup missional purpose?
Stone Soup builds community with the most overlooked people group in American society and churches. The mission is to provide a practical and successful way for all families to experience the love of Christ and to fully participate in the church and larger community.
When can our church start Stone Soup?
Immediately. We recommend a church start with either Holiday Camp @ Christmas in December or Stone Soup Community Fair in early Spring. Then launch the full Stone Soup outreach in February after Holiday Camp or in March OR September after Community Fair. Stone Soup includes program materials for Stone Soup Friday Night, Stone Soup on Sunday, and two additional parent outreach events per month if desired.
What does Stone Soup provide for our church to have a successful effort?
Stone Soup connects you to an association of Stone Soup leadership for on-going counsel and training as your effort expands to include more families and a larger community.
Stone Soup provides monthly Stone Soup Friday Night curriculum, Stone Soup on Sunday guidelines, and information on how to conduct “parent only” outreach events throughout the year. Including media and promotional kits, forms, training videos, and support resources.
What services does Stone Soup provide to make our process effective?
Stone Soup provides a unique web-site for your church – location that you can administer along with our assistance as needed.
Stone Soup Database services allows for On-Line Applications to be completed by Parents and Volunteers to speed up the process and eliminate some of the paper management.
Stone Soup Database services include the following unique support:
- Monthly automated reminders to parents of campers of the next events on the calendar
- Automated confirmation by parents of campers attendance to assist planning by the Director and Craft Coordinator
- Reports and Support for the Phone Coordinator
- Stone Soup E-Cards sent to Campers and others on birthdays from your church’s Stone Soup.
- Ease of communication with campers and counselor volunteers.
Stone Soup Parent Resource Room
- Articles
- Updated information
- Calendar
How do we fund this effort on a tight budget?
Stone Soup is a very cost effective way to reach more people and transform your own church’s understanding of its role in the community. The support provided by Stone Soup National will allow a volunteer Director to lead a large outreach effort with no additional compensated staff.
Additionally, churches are surprised that funds not generally available otherwise are provided for Stone Soup efforts. Church members and community friends, when made aware of the outreach effort, will contribute easily to Stone Soup. Few communities have this type of community building ministry to touch families of children and young adults with special needs and the powerful response is generally overwhelming.
Further, there is a very small Fee for Parents for Stone Soup Friday Night which will cover most of the monthly craft and supply needs. The fee is set at $5 per child or young adult or a $10 per family maximum, as Stone Soup Friday Night allows for all siblings to attend with the camper who has special needs. Parents on a tight budget appreciate having the fee to assure them of having high quality respite care they are generally unable to find or that they can trust, elsewhere.
Stone Soup provides at least 6 months of all programs and services at no cost except for a one time set-up fee for your web-site and database related services. The set-up fee is $500.
The on-going annual fee, after at least 6 months of having Stone Soup, is based on a formula of approximately $1.00 per average Sunday morning church attendance with a cap for larger churches. For example, one church having Stone Soup, has about 2,000 in attendance – their line item budget for Stone Soup is $3,000 for 2009. The church now has about 50 families with Stone Soup and anticipates doubling that in the Spring of 2009.
What kind of response can we anticipate from families, the church, and the community?
You can have as large of a response as you can handle! Churches have found that it is not difficult to have 30 to 50 families of children and young adults involved within a short period of time. Families who are Christians but not attending any church will find their way to your church immediately. Others will come through the Stone Soup Friday Night outreach and then transition into a closer relationship.
Stone Soup’s unique approach will attract large numbers of servant volunteers of church members, both adults and students, without competing with your existing ministries. From this engagement, come enthusiasm, awareness, and transformation. The transformation that occurs in the whole church is the most unexpected result. God honors reaching out to the most overlooked people group in our churches. It does strike a chord in the minds and hearts of church members and even the community that this is the “Jesus Way” of touching a community.
The community will be very supportive. Other churches will be supportive in ways not previously imagined, by them or your church. Social clubs and organizations will support your efforts. Educational and medical leaders will engage with your church in new ways. The media will pay special attention to your “giving” efforts.
Evangelism will start happening. Marriages will be saved. One church found it as a powerful yet unexpected way to reach into the previously unreachable “agnostic and atheist” community. Many families of children and young adults are disappointed or even angry with God and when they are touched by your ministry with Stone Soup they tell their friends. We suggest you have a pastoral leader prepare for “apologetics” ministry alongside the greatest apologetic – love.
What if we already have a ministry for those with special needs?
That is excellent. Your church will need someone who is called of God to lead such a ministry. If you already have identified that leader then prepare for explosive growth when you adopt Stone Soup as your outreach ministry.
Most churches reach a very limited number, most last less than 2 years with any enthusiasm. Most are in a support mode and often not very visible. Stone Soup is an outreach ministry that will bring many more families into the church, the enthusiasm will grow over a long period of years, and Stone Soup is very visible within the church and to the community.