Celebrating Community Engagement and Financial Stewardship

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Kristin Flynn, the Outreach Director at Liquid Church in New Jersey. She leads the charge in both local and global outreach.

Putting our faith into action through loving service is an important part of following Jesus. So how do we help the people at our churches do this on a regular basis? Tune in as Kristin shares about the power of a few focused outreach initiatives, creative ways to engage your church, and cultivating long-lasting relationships with community partners.

• Limited focus. // At Liquid Church they’ve limited their outreach focus to three primary compassion initiatives locally: serving the hungry, serving the homeless, and making space and inclusion for the special needs community. Concentrating on specific areas allows for very strategic partnerships where they’ve been able to multiply their impact. At the same time, however, there is room on the campus level to expand service into some niche areas that address critical needs in specific neighborhoods.
• Collaboration, communication and flexibility. // There’s a tension to manage between different campus needs and the Liquid’s narrow outreach focus. Maintain open communication and collaboration between campus leaders and the central office. By fostering a culture of creativity and flexibility, unique campus initiatives can be integrated into the broader outreach strategy while staying aligned with the larger mission. 
• Choose partners that work best. // By understanding the goals and needs of community organizations, Liquid Church can align its outreach efforts with their partners’ missions. Kristin encourages churches to start slow in a partnership, beginning with an exploratory conversation about what they’re doing currently, and what is their five-year plan and “wish list.” Start with a small group of volunteers serving with the organization and review their experience. Maintain open lines of communication with partners and volunteers, and implement regular feedback sessions to address any issues and improve future initiatives. As trust is built, you can expand the scope and depth of your partnership.
• Two types of outreach. // Liquid engages in two types of local outreaches: churchwide, evangelistic outreaches, and campus-specific, community outreaches. Large churchwide events, such as a Christmas outreach, include church-branded t-shirts, attract new people and create excitement. Meanwhile smaller campus-specific initiatives allow for deeper engagement and relationship-building with your neighbors.
• WASH Program. // Globally, Liquid Church partners with Living Water International to help with their WASH Program, providing Water Access, Sanitation, and Hygiene to communities around the world. In addition to working in countries like Rwanda and Zambia to provide clean water, Liquid keeps the community at home engaged in this mission through a variety of creative approaches. For example, they’ve opened a coffee shop which is run by adults with special needs and all proceeds go toward the clean water cause. In addition they’ve raised money and raised awareness about the global water crisis through a community 5K run. Use out-of-the-box ideas to both educate your community and fund outreach initiatives while keeping your church connected to the mission.
• Funding outreaches. // Liquid Church tithes 10% of its income, allocating these funds specifically for outreach efforts, both locally and globally. This commitment to tithing is a significant aspect of Liquid Church’s financial strategy and allows them to actively partner with other organizations throughout the year. In addition, they keep the congregation informed about specific ways their contributions are being used. Regular celebration encourages future generosity and generates excitement about the impact the church is having in its community.

You can learn more about Liquid Church at www.liquidchurch.com and connect with Kristin through email.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today. You know every once in a while I get to bring on friends who I know like in the real world and expose you to them. And today is one of those days. You need to lean in. Turn off whatever you’re doing – if you’re cutting your lawn, stop cutting your lawn. You’re going to need a notepad. You’re going to lean lean in and listen. Today we’ve got Kristin Flynn with us. She is a part of the leadership team at Liquid Church. She’s the Outreach Director there, really really leading the charge in both local community outreach and global outreach, like clean water cause. Ah for folks that don’t know Liquid Church is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. About a month ago we had Lauren Bercarich on, if you remember that episode. Ah they have 7 campuses, if I can count correctly, in New Jersey, plus church online. Um this is a fantastic church, had an opportunity to be on the team there a number of years ago and got to work with Kristin and so honored that she’s on the podcast today. Welcome, Kristin.

Kristin Flynn — Thanks, Rich! Thanks so much for having me today. It’s great to be back and working with you and connecting. You definitely ah left your mark at Liquid. So thanks for having me here today.

Rich Birch — I don’t know if that’s a positive thing… that could not be positive.

Kristin Flynn — It is! No way!

Rich Birch — I’m just kidding, just kidding.

Kristin Flynn — So good. Yeah.

Rich Birch —That’s great. Well why don’t you kind of fill in the story a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your role, about you, about Liquid – kind of what what do we miss there in the internet introduction about you and what you do at Liquid?

Kristin Flynn — Sure. Yeah, so um, as Rich said I’m the Outreach Director at Liquid. I’ve been in the role just about 10 years, which is wild, um…

Rich Birch — Amazing. A decade!

Kristin Flynn — A decade’s crazy. Um, and I have the honor of supporting our campuses. Like Rich said we’re a multi-site church and so um I help drive our initiatives and our compassion focuses, which is hunger and homelessness, special needs, and our global cause is clean water. And so year after year we’re looking on our calendar planning where we can serve our community locally. How do we bring our global cause even locally to our for people to experience. And how do we make an impact for Christ in each of our counties that are we have campuses. So I strategize that work with our teams and then help our campus implement those as their boots on the ground, taking ground for Jesus in their community.

Rich Birch — So good. You know I’m really looking forward to unpacking this. Kristin, it was ah it was a while ago… maybe it was last spring, you helped out in our church growth incubator, which is a private coaching group that we do, and unpacked a lot of great insight. And so I’m really excited to have you bring ah, some of that to our our our community today as we’re kind of listening in on this conversation. But why don’t so there’s I think there’s a lot of different things we could talk about here, but one of the things that Liquid’s been known really from the beginning has been, you know, a church that really is trying to put faith into action. That it’s not enough to just kind of create, you know, or ask people to have a faith that’s just kind of between their ears or is just their kind of thinking um but it ultimately needs to kind of work itself out in in how we kind of react in the world around us. Can you kind of expand a little bit on that part, just even on the philosophical or, you know, discipleship or kind of big picture?

Kristin Flynn — Sure.

Rich Birch — Why is that important? Why do why do we see that as you know a critical place critical thing for us to invest in to ultimately try to move people towards?

Kristin Flynn — Absolutely. I mean I always go back to the passage where Jesus saw the crowds and he had compassion on them. Then that sprung into action.

Rich Birch — So good.

Kristin Flynn — And so for me I’m always thinking like how do we get our people—we say out of their seats into the streets—to meet the needs of their neighbors and start building those relationships. And so um I think it’s a huge part of our discipleship process because God’s gifted all of our people with amazing talents, unique perspectives, and gifts. And so those are able to be expressed through outreach.

Kristin Flynn — We might come to church and be on the worship team or guest connections and that’s beautiful. But there’s a pocket of your people that are your activists that want to activate their faith and be part of bringing Jesus to their neighbors, to the shelters, to the schools, all of that. And so ah outreach is a real key piece to have um, everyone in every age and stage say like, I can be a part of what God’s doing outside of my church and my community and show that love of Christ and ah have our actions show who he is before sometimes they’ll even step in church. And so outreach really is that vehicle for our people, which are our best ambassadors, to serve their community and show Jesus. But then also um, allow people to see the church in action and to be like wow, what what who are these people and what’s different about them? And so um, yeah, so…

Rich Birch — So good.

Kristin Flynn — …I think outreach is just such a key piece for discipleship.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so great. I love that. And you know one of the things that, frankly has been just inspiring to watch over the years as you’ve led this area, has been your tenacity around staying focused. You talked about this in the introduction – you have a few areas that Liquid focuses on, which I could be this is one of those kind of principles we see in general. That um, you know, Liquid’s a large growing church by kind of every metric you can look at. And and this follows the principle that like large churches do less. You know there’s lots of small churches I talk to where they ask about community outreach and they’ll rattle off a menu of a hundred things they do. But but Liquid has really, and you’ve done such a good job keeping Liquid focused on a few areas. Can you talk us through those three areas again and then why. And then, is it important to stay focused? How does that fit into kind of your thinking around outreach?

Kristin Flynn — Sure. Yeah, and and, Rich, there’s really it could go two ways, right? But for Liquid we’ve said, hey we were going to focus what we felt God called us to is to serve the hungry, to serve the homeless, and to make space and inclusion for the special needs community. And so our our outreach um focus has stayed really in those channels, but they’re very broad, right?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Kristin Flynn — So that may mean providing lunches for school children. That may mean um helping those that are with that are in transitional housing that are just about to be on their own with job placement, and and resume writing or just even, like a spa day for the moms, right? Like things like that that, you know, don’t you don’t traditionally think of of helping, you know, serving the homeless, the unhoused, or the hungry. But that’s like kind of changing the curve a little bit to before someone finds themselves homeless.

Kristin Flynn — Um here in New Jersey, like the cost of housing is insane. So everyone really is just on that cusp of being unhoused. And so we’re we partnered with organizations that are serving those that are currently unhoused, but also those that are trying to get ahead of that, right? So young adult training, after school programs, things like that. But also working in shelters – those that are really face-to-face with those aren’t housed right now. And so having that focus has allowed us to be really strategic with our partners and who we link arms within in the community. However, there is space for us at the campus level to have a kind of a once in a while expansion of that.

Kristin Flynn — And so an example would be young lives our Middlesex County campus has a great relationship with Young Lives, serving young parents, women and children. And so we’ll support them with ah like a meet the need every quarter or so, twice a year, with a diaper drive served maybe at their ah their special event. And so it’s not necessarily falls into the categories of our compassion focus, but it’s still something that we can integrate at a campus level. Maybe just not our churchwide ah focuses.

Kristin Flynn — So we do deviate a little bit because each campus is in different communities, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — And the communities are different. We are our Passaic County campus that is our their neighbors are Patterson, right, which has great need. Um and then you have Middlesex County which is a little bit different. So we have to be able to be flexible at times um, but our churchwide initiatives, our large outreaches as well as most of our ah midsize outreach, you know, do triyto stay within ah serving the homeless and and that food insecure, so or special needs. We love the special needs community.

Rich Birch — Yeah let’s let’s kind of pull that apart a little bit.

Kristin Flynn — Sure.

Rich Birch — So you know I’ve said in other contexts about multisite that it takes one kind of leader to get ten leaders around a table and, say okay, everybody think something different. And then it takes a different kind of leader to get 10 leaders around the table and say we’re going to focus on these things. Like you know, and and I think frankly I think it takes um, a more adept leader, I think it takes a stronger leader to do that, to keep people focused, to keep particularly leaders focused.

Rich Birch — And you talked about kind of the differences between campuses. I think this is one of the things that we can struggle with is, you know, you’ve got different campuses that all see their communities differently by definition. You’re in different locations, and so things are a little bit different. Can you talk us through how do you have those conversations, or is this a non-issue? Everyone’s just happy to be aligned and happy to do whatever Kristin says. Do you, you know, what’s that look like for you?

Kristin Flynn — Um, listen this is a great like tension and challenge we face, I would say quarterly, right?

Rich Birch — Okay.

Kristin Flynn — Someone from our congregation, they’re part of a mom’s group that wants to do X, Y and Z and so the campus leaders come like, hey we want to get around this thing. And so it is a conversation, right? A lot of it I would say from what kind of ah dictates or informs how we move is really what’s happening on the calendar, right? So if we have a big church initiative happening and we need to be focused on what we’re putting our all our resources to, then maybe that thing won’t happen this quarter. But I always try to say like, where in your campus calendar can it fit in, right?

Kristin Flynn — And again, it’s not something that is going to be an ongoing monthly community outreach for us. It probably wouldn’t be something that we would ah do churchwide, right? But I do want to kind of fan that flame – if you got someone on your church that’s like, “hey, I’m really into this,” do look for ways to say, how can we partner? And it could be resources, right? They may say, hey we’re going to go out the streets and we want to pack out hygiene we want to hand out hygiene kits – can can we do that as a life group? Yeah, let’s maybe perhaps do that on your campus. You guys can pack them and X amount are going to go to our partners at City Relief and the others we’re going to have this other group that’s going to go out in the streets in New Brunswick and they’re going to hand them out, right? And so it’s really getting creative.

Kristin Flynn — I’ve I think ah him over my time I’ve learned just kind of pull back and hear what they want to do and that those they want to serve and say, okay, like how can this fit it? And sometimes it is like ah it’s not a no; it’s just a not now.

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — But I do I do my best to keep it in my head to say this is something unique for this campus. That’s fine. Our Union County campus is gonna be different, but to really be open to the possibility of where it can fit in at the campus level, and how we can support it. So yeah.

Rich Birch — That’s good. I want to come back to the partner question in a in a second…

Kristin Flynn — Sure.

Rich Birch — …because I think there’s I think there’s some really valuable insight there, but I’m saying that mostly for myself so I remember. Ah but you know you talked about um kind of big I don’t, you know, community-wide, like we’re gonna, or churchwide – we’re gonna do these big, you know, pack a million meals kind of thing. Those are flashy, or like in other contexts that’s like love week, or you know I know at Church of the Highlands there’s Serve Day. It’s like, Hey we’re going to put we’re going to put special t-shirts on everybody and do something, get the social media team there. We do all that.

Kristin Flynn — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And then there are the like um, you know, smaller things where it’s like we’re showing up and maybe my small group is going to serve. Talk to me about how you think about those two different things. How do they work together? Are they in competition with each other? Are they, you know, how how does all that fit together in in outreach at Liquid?

Kristin Flynn — Yes, so this is a ah nut we’ve been trying to crack for a really long time…

Rich Birch — Okay, good.

Kristin Flynn — …and try to figure it out. But I think um, what we’ve identified is ah kind of inserting these community outreach partners is key for us to be woven into the fabric of our community. We can do the big things and have the promotion which is amazing. It’s a huge activation for our church, a space for new people that have never walked into a church or heard of Liquid, but they’re like, yeah I can pack a million meals for the hungry. I I want to serve at Night to Shine to serve the special needs community. That’s amazing. I would never want to do to choose either/or. I always want to ah move towards both/and.

Kristin Flynn — And so with community outreach, it’s really key the partners you select. And so I’ve kind of just ah created, we’re almost like dating each other for a little bit…

Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.

Kristin Flynn — …to build trust, right? So like Liquid Church – maybe we’ve they’ve heard of us. Maybe they haven’t. But we want to get to know the organization as well as them to get to know us. And so I move this process really slow. So starting with an an exploratory conversation, hearing what they’re doing now. And I always ask like, what’s your 5 year plan, like what’s on your like dream list, just to see like how could we partner and and come into line with them.

Kristin Flynn — Um, and then what we do is that we’ve like started starting with our small groups and our campus teams to serve. However, that organization has like ah a serving opportunity, we’ll serve just exactly how um, a typical volunteer session would be. And then we evaluate like, hey was this a great was this a great volunteer experience? Did I know where to go? Did I get communication?

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — Was I walking in totally blind, which is just like us getting information so we know how to better prepare our people should we more move forward…

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — …with the partner and the ongoing serving opportunities. Um and so there’s kind of a strategy behind that, but the key of community partnership is that you’ve got these nonprofits that are busting every single week, serving the ah the homeless or the food insecure, and they’re running super fast, right? And so my heart is that we would be able to encourage them and take some weight off once a month and be a solid group of volunteers that can come help move their mission forward.

Kristin Flynn — And it’s key, right? Because not all our people can um, go to the big outreaches. But also it’s part of our group strategy, right? So we have tried to make big church small and bring it into a group context where you’re in a group of maybe 12 people meeting weekly. This is a great opportunity for them to say, hey we’re going to go serve and have this experience together and activate our faith that way.

Kristin Flynn — So um I love our community partners. Our campuses have done such a tremendous job this past year in taking ground and really linking arms with community teams. And the beautiful thing is is it kind of sets us up then to say, remember that thing you mentioned that initial meeting about how you wanted to…

Rich Birch — Oh, so good.

Kristin Flynn — …revamp your your food pantry and create this community center. We’re like, hey we would love to partner with you on that in this…

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — …you know campus specific churchwide outreach, which is what we’re about to get ready to do in a week so um so…

Rich Birch — Oh wow, nice. You get to be everybody’s best friend.

Kristin Flynn — Yes…

Rich Birch — You say, hey we want to help you with this…

Kristin Flynn — Yeah, I mean it’s it’s a beautiful part of being part of a church that really wants to put their faith in action, and um, it desires to make an impact in the community. So yeah, we’re really blessed.

Rich Birch — That’s great. What so I’m sure I love that even that vision that picture of like the positive side of partnership, hey things are heading in the right direction and it’s like we’re going to start with like maybe a couple small groups serving there. And then eventually come back around and say, hey we might do some kind of bigger project.

Rich Birch — I’m sure that there’s been some partnerships over the ten years that have been here that have not been that positive, that maybe have been more negative. Give us some of the telltale signs of like, ooh this is not going how we thought it would go, and or or have they all been perfect? Maybe there haven’t been any that have gone kind of sideways. But have there been any kind of things that if something starts to happen you start thinking, Oh we might want to address this. Or maybe we want to take a step back or reevaluate, or have a crucial conversation with them. What what’s that look like? Ah

Kristin Flynn — Yeah, that’s that’s no, it’s never happened, Rich. It’s just been great; roses…

Rich Birch — Roses every time.

Kristin Flynn — …um roses every time. Listen it it can happen, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — And so um my goal is that our volunteers have a wonderful experience so that they, ah serving, so that they want to return and serve at that organization. And that their service is meaningful and making the impact, right? But sometimes it could be that we’re not receiving receiving communication, right? Or a lot of times, to be quite honest, it could be like their registration process has so many clicks, no one’s ever going to complete it, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — And so we’ve had to figure out how do we have a conversation? And you know we’re in these conversations now of like how can we get you the data you need, and have this be a really simple sign-up process for our people, right? I remember you saying like one click, one click – you don’t want people clicking through [inaudible]…

Rich Birch — And make it as easy possible. Yeah, yeah for sure.

Kristin Flynn — …as easy as possible. Yeah. Um, and so that’s really actually informed how we actually plan our year with our community outreach. So it used to be, all right, we’re going to do every every second Thursday of the month. Well your church calendar changes.

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — The relationship might be going sideways and you need to ah, you know, recalibrate. And so what we’ve been doing is planning by quarter. The the key that what’s that’s been a gift to us because one we’ve be able to say what’s happening in the next quarter? Like you know, the fall is insane.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Kristin Flynn — Do we need to pare back? Do we need to go to every other month?

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — Um, or you know are we doing every other month, but you got people asking you, hey I want to serve; I want to serve. Do we need to add another session and start having those conversations…

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Kristin Flynn — …halfway through, you know, the the current quarter. So that flexibility, and it’s actually ah I find it very like it’s kind that the organization wants to do it, but allows us to do that, but it’s also kind to them to say, hey like I don’t want to say we’re coming and we can’t, right?

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Kristin Flynn — And so it allows us to continue to have communication. And that’s that’s another key thing is it’s easy to schedule these things, and then be like okay sending volunteers, but not…

Rich Birch — Done!

Kristin Flynn — Yes, done. And not fostering that relationship…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.

Kristin Flynn — …and not having those touch points to check to your point of contact there. Even simple things of like bringing doughnuts and be like, surprise! Here’s a little sweet treat; just thinking about you guys. You know want to encourage you, outside of what’s scheduled. Um, really nurturing those relationships so it becomes a really healthy partnership, and they know they can call on us and we know when we send our people it’s going to be a great organized… You know, it doesn’t have to be clean. It doesn’t have to be grit like not gritty. I’m okay with a little grit. You know getting our people’s hands dirty. Um, but you know, I just want to make sure that it’s it’s it’s impactful…

Rich Birch — Sure.

Kristin Flynn — …and meaningful for both parties.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love that. You know, I know in in this area there can be this tension. And you even just there at the end you were kind of um you know hinting towards it. There’s this tension, and I’ve joked about it earlier. It’s like that get everybody with a nice t-shirt on. You know, make sure there’s like really good snacks when people arrive – all of that stuff – which is is like positive volunteer experience type stuff. But some people might criticize that and say, oh that’s actually taking away from whatever the good work that this organization is doing.

Rich Birch — How how do you help manage that tension as, you know, I see um—and again, you know I you know I love Liquid obviously, obviously—but like it would I think it could be easy to be, and maybe you don’t get this criticism. It could be easy to look from the outside and say we’re going to pack a million meals and, which is an amazing experience. But then I look at those videos and I’m like there’s a lot more going on there than just packing meals. Like man, there’s all the other kind of elements and that all costs money. How do you think about all of that in the greater kind of picture of, Okay, we’re we’re trying to do good in these areas. We’re trying to actually push forward God’s Kingdom in these various things.

Kristin Flynn — Yeah, for me, Rich, there are two different lenses to look at, right?

Rich Birch — Yep.

Kristin Flynn — So our our Christmas outreach that’s an evangelistic ah outreach, right?

Rich Birch — Yep.

Kristin Flynn — We know ah that people want to serve at Christmas. It’s an outreach that can host 6000 volunteers – it’s 2 hours.

Rich Birch — Amazing.

Kristin Flynn — Like it’s in and out and and allows us to really roll out an amazing volunteer experience…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Kristin Flynn — …of greeting shirts, all the holiday stuff, which quite honestly our campuses do an amazing job Sunday to Sunday with their dream teams and having…

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — …shirts for them to serve so our new guests can identify who’s there to to greet them, answer their questions. And so it’s a little taste of you know, not all the the all of all the celebratory things…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Kristin Flynn — …that you might see the Christmas outreach highlight video.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Kristin Flynn — But um, when it comes to community outreach, that’s really pared down. That’s like more heart work in the sense of…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Kristin Flynn — …I want our people to know their neighbors. And so we just come as we are. There is no like t-shirts for that. It is we are serving as another team would from Pfizer, or from another organization just to come and be what they what but they need our hands to do that day. That’s what we’re doing.

Kristin Flynn — And so um, and really the the care comes from comes from the campus leadership of preparing them to serve, as well as a follow up. Um and then at the campus level taking some like ah pictures while they’re making a meal or something that I like that and hosting it on their campus social media. It’s not the big flashy outreach. It’s where we go deep. So if you think of ah churchwide outreach. It’s ah we cast a wide net, it pulls a lot of people in, which is amazing. But then what with the vertical and going deep is a community outreach where it’s smaller pockets of people saying, yes, I want to serve my community in this intimate way. Um. And and so both are needed, but they both look a little bit different. Yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that and you know obviously I’m play a little bit of a devil’s advocate. One of the things I love, and and you have been I think been such an elegant advocate for this over the years that um I really do think that ah that what’s best for all of these partners, from our perspective as a church, what’s best for the the causes that we’re trying to partner with is that our church grows and that we get more people in on this stuff. And it’s like’s there’s ah, there’s a virtuous loop there that if we, man, if we work on those kind of large things that are, like you say 6000 people all doing something on a weekend, man, we can convert some of those people into helping out a you know food soup kitchen, you know, monthly. But if we don’t get a chance to actually have a conversation with them in the first place, we’re never going to get there.

Kristin Flynn —  Yeah.

Rich Birch — Let’s let’s pivot to a slightly different kind of part of this, which is the global aspect of what Liquid’s up to. One of the things, you know breaking the third wall, that I would say one of the things I’m the proudest of is how Liquid has stuck with the water cause over all of these years. And it’s encouraging for me to see the global numbers continue to come down, the number of people who who don’t have access to clean drinking water, and Liquid’s been a part of that. Um, first before you, brag on Liquid first, talk because I’m sure you’ve got them start a statistic…

Kristin Flynn — Yes.

Rich Birch — …around how you know how many people Liquids helped.

Kristin Flynn — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And then let’s talk about how you how you’re doing that. What’s that look like?

Kristin Flynn — Sure. So um, yes I would love to brag on Liquid. Um, so we’ve actually completed our WASH program in Rwanda. WASH Program is Water access, Sanitation, Hygiene – so an entire community in Rwanda now has access to clean water.

Rich Birch — Incredible.

Kristin Flynn — We’ve had the people are incredibly generous. We’re able to buy a purchase a deep water drill ah drill so that we can you know access, clean, safe drinking water. Um, and now because we’ve saturated that area, our partner Living Water International has asked us to move into Zambia.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Kristin Flynn — So we’ve recently moved into Zambia last year drilling wells there, partnering with a school for kids with special needs. I had the opportunity to go and it was it was just eye opening and like so inspiring to see the work that LWI is doing and that we get to be a part of it is just a huge blessing. And then we have some future plans too to stay tuned towards that for.

Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.

Kristin Flynn — But yeah, we’ve definitely, our church is passionate about bringing providing safe, clean, drinking water to those that don’t have access to it. So when you turn on our tap, we’re like, wow, today my friends in Rwanda in some areas don’t have access to this, right, or in Zambia.

Kristin Flynn — And so um, yeah so clean water is our global cause. We recently opened up the Clean Water Cafe which it’s a cafe run by adults with special needs, and the proceeds go towards clean water. So it’s bringing our global cause locally um and spreading that mission through a coffee shop, which is incredible. Um, and you know the challenge can be though, Rich, is that we have 3 teams this year going internationally…

Rich Birch — Wow.

Kristin Flynn — …to serve on the ground, boots on the ground, teams of 12, right? And so it’s one of the challenges is how do we bring the global cause locally to ignite our people and to have them engage in this. And so a few years ago we did ah a run for Rwanda, which was a 5K um, you know, chiptimed race. So we were able to invite the community and everyone else that was trying to build their their race stats. And it was all ages and stages and that you know that event which it did it had had the t-shirts. It had the DJ. It had a water walk with statistics of like how many hours ah a day, or year, that a young girl is going to catch or to fetch to dirty water. And then you know on the backside it showed the statistics of the impact of clean water, and the education that children can can receive, and all these amazing things when you provide clean water to a community, how it transforms it.

Kristin Flynn — And so we use that opportunity to say, you know, let’s engage our entire church in this 5K run, all ages and stages, and they raise money for Rwanda. And so it went towards our goal in of supporting that cause there. And so sometimes at the global cause you do have to get a little creative um to say…

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Kristin Flynn — …how do I do this? But that worked for us really well. I’ve had so many people say, “Are we doing that run again?” so many times, so we’ll see – maybe 2025. Um but yeah, yeah, we’ll see, we’ll see um…

Rich Birch — That’s so good. What else can you do so that, you know, obviously there’s only a certain number of people that can go, you know, ah to to Rwanda or to even really to anywhere you know internationally. I love the idea of the run. Are there other things, maybe Sprint for Zambia, trying to think what is you know of other names that are you know how’s that work. But how could you how could what are other ways that you’re trying to engage people in that cause ah, that you know maybe not everybody can go yes, yes.

Kristin Flynn — Yeah, so it is challenging, you know.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Kristin Flynn — But we do pack like Hygiene kits and salvation bracelets and things like that. So small groups have the ability to do that. Um, that way they’re meeting as a group and having this impact of supplies that will then go with our teams. Um, there are ways to run for our do different races that raise money to for clean water. Um, it’s it’s it’s a little bit more of a a challenge quite honestly. Um, but definitely sharing stories at our campus level. We’ve had the founder of LWI come and speak to our legacy teama. So I know we’re trying to bring some things, you know, once a year, or twice a year to the greater, our churchwide audience just to keep this cause on the forefront. So it takes a little more creativity Um, but we’re we’re getting there.

Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, we had Mike Mantel from LWI, the partner, your partner.

Kristin Flynn — Yeah.

Rich Birch — On the podcast in the past. I’d encourage folks that are listening to go back and listen to that particularly. I really do think that the water crisis is a fantastic kind of global initiative for churches to partner with, and LWI Living Water International does such a good job. Um, they’re great people for sure.

Rich Birch — Can we talk about the money side of this? Man, there’s a lot of different stuff that’s going on here.

Kristin Flynn — Yeah.

Rich Birch — How is Liquid funding all of this? How does this how how… I think there’s a lot of churches that would be like wait, man. We would love to do this, but where does all the money come to do this?

Kristin Flynn — Sure. So um, Liquid tithes 10% that we receive. 10% of that goes out to the community. It’s outreach allocated, right? So that would be their clean water, that would be our our community outreach, our churchwide outreach. Um, and then there’s folks, there’s ah, there’s a beautiful couple in our community, our church community that every year they’re like, hey, I want to do the Night to Shine sign. This is like this big billboard type sign and they donate donate it. So there’s people in our congregation that have donated resources or their time…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Kristin Flynn — …or physical items to help enhance those things. Um, and but but, you know, true I’m truly best in my position that that is Liquid structure that 10% goes out to the community, and so that really sets our budget for the year as to you know what things we can do to reach the unreached, and to serve the unserved.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. And, friends, um like this is what I love about you, Kristin, you just blew past that like that was no big deal. That’s a massive deal. There’s a bunch of executive pastors just like spit their coffee out and said 10% goes external – that is that’s amazing. Like that um, that is super rare. Like I know there’s lots of churches that would count the percentage that would be deemed, you know, that the way Liquid counts this in like single digit percentages or fractions of percentages. Um it it it really is amazing. And I think it is a part of what has made Liquid I think it’s a part of frankly why God has blessed continue to bless Liquid is because of this kind of thing.

Kristin Flynn — Yeah.

Rich Birch — So yeah, so friends, I don’t want you to miss this. Part of the reason why this happens is because at a leadership level they made a decision, hey, we’ve got to we if we’re going to ask people to tithe, maybe we should tithe. Maybe this should be, which doesn’t sound at at a high level as that big of a deal, but it’s significant. That’s that’s a huge deal.

Rich Birch — How do you report back on that stuff. What does that look like? How does Liquid kind of celebrate these things? You know, because obviously when people give to Liquid, good things happen like this.

Kristin Flynn — Yeah.

Rich Birch — What does that process look like for the church?

Kristin Flynn — Yeah, so we have an amazing Communications Director – you might know her Lauren Bercarich, who was on recently um and our creative team. So we’ll…

Rich Birch — Yeah, she’s incredible.

Kristin Flynn — …yeah, love Lauren. Um, so we’ll actually help we’ll celebrate these things um usually typically like a week or two weeks on a Sunday, whether it’s in the highlight reel or the offering prep, because we want people to know like where they’re giving is going and the impact…

Rich Birch — Right.

Kristin Flynn — …that it’s making outside our walls. So typically that’s over we’ll highlight that. It’s also part of our quarterly updates that Pastor Tim and Pastor Dave send out. Um, so people are knowing where the impacts that their resources are having, as well as highlighting perhaps they were boots on the ground serving, right? And so our creative team, our video/photography team will be at these events, take amazing shots and videos, put them together as an inspirational piece. And really it’s it’s I think our responsibility to highlight these things as people are giving up their Saturday, they’re giving up you know time from their job to come serve. And so I want them to be celebrated, like I think God celebrates that they’re serving, right? And so we’ll highlight these typically in our Sunday services.

Kristin Flynn — We have thank you postcards that go out to our volunteers. That’s been a key one for our campus teams after, you know, hours upon hours that some of these large outreaches take and are volunteers are moving the project forward. We want to thank them. And so our campus teams write thank yous to key volunteers that really made a difference in making the outreach happen.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well this has been a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate you being here today, Kristin. And and just so helpful and inspiring. And I hope, listeners, as you listened in today you were inspired, that you could be the kind of thing that would move you to action. One of the things we’ve seen time and again is in fast-growing churches the language I’ve used is they’re involved in magnetic community service. This idea that, hey, we want to serve the community in a way that ultimately um, you know, we do what Jesus says, we’re not going to do our good works in a hidden off somewhere. We’re going to let our light shine to the community around us. And that does resonate with people and it does help us ultimately reach folks and and, Kristin, you’ve given us some inspiring ideas today, so I really appreciate that. Any kind of final words you’d like to say just as we wrap up today’s episode?

Kristin Flynn — Yes, I’m so glad you asked. I just want to circle back on that community outreach partnership. And like you said, Rich, big church can move fast. You’ve got to slow down when you build in your community outreaches and those partnerships…

Rich Birch — So good.

Kristin Flynn — …that we’re we’re moving now in a partnership that’s fifty/fifty, right? So our Liquid timeline may not align with theirs, and that is okay.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Kristin Flynn — We have to be able to be willing to kind of meet in the middle, and just take time. If that’s if if they can’t if we can’t do something together now, then maybe just let it simmer for a little bit and revisit it in a couple months when they’re out of their gala season or whatever it is.

Kristin Flynn — Um, and so I don’t want you to be discouraged. It will be a stop, go, stop, go with those relationships, and that’s okay. Um, we really just need to be flexible and open to the meeting them where their needs are and when they need us. And so it’s a little bit different then having the agenda and pushing it forward. You got to pull back and slow down and let that relationship build.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s so good. I love the relational um angle push. You know, I think so many times we can particularly, you’re right, in large growing churches. It’s like well can you do this next week and that’s just the timeline we’re used to. And lots of organizations are like, no. That’s not going to work. And that doesn’t mean that we can’t partner with them long term. That’s that’s so good.

Kristin Flynn — Right.

Rich Birch — Well Kristin, if we want to send people online to learn more about outreach at Liquid or Liquid or you, where do we want to send them if they if they want more information?

Kristin Flynn — Sure. Yeah, you can reach me at kristin@liquidchurch.com k-r-i-s-t-i-n and I’d be happy to connect with you, even jump on a Zoom, whatever. Our resources at Liquid are open to anybody. So even it’s not just outreach or there’s something else that you want to ask about, I am happy to connect you with some of our amazing leaders there too. So thanks so much for having me, Rich. This has been great.

Rich Birch — So good. So good to see you today. Great to connect a little bit. And yeah, just all the best as you continue to push forward in the areas that you are. Thanks, Kristin, for being here.

Kristin Flynn — Thanks so much.