Run to the BrokennessSample

Day 3: Identify the Need:

What if the greatest opportunity for breakthrough in your church isn’t inside your sanctuary—but across the street from it?

Too many churches are excellent at programming Sunday but paralyzed when it comes to Monday through Saturday. We gather well. We preach well. We sing well. But ministry doesn’t begin when people walk through our doors. It begins when we walk out of them—with eyes that see and hearts that break.

Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap” (Luke 6:38, NIV). This isn’t just a financial promise—it’s a kingdom principle. When you give yourself away—your time, your presence, your attention—God gives more in return than you could ever generate on your own. The outpouring follows the obedience.

But obedience starts with awareness. And awareness starts with asking the right questions.

Sometimes the challenge isn’t that we’re unwilling to help—it’s that we’ve never stopped to look closely enough. Needs don’t always knock on your door; often, they sit quietly in the shadows of your own community. It might be the elderly neighbor whose yard is overgrown because she can’t afford help, the single dad juggling two jobs and still falling short on rent, or the teenager skipping lunch because there’s nothing in the fridge at home. The need has been there all along—sometimes we just haven’t seen it.

It’s not that the Church doesn’t care. It’s that we’ve grown used to the brokenness. Shopping carts on sidewalks. Empty lunchboxes. Students without safe rides to school. Single moms trying to choose between diapers and rent. Over time, these realities fade into the background—until someone forces us to look again.

But when we do look—and when we choose to act—something shifts.

That’s what happened when a small launch team in Fresno decided to start collecting abandoned shopping carts. It didn’t solve everything. But it said something: We see the need. We’re not ignoring it. We’re stepping in. That one act helped shape the DNA of an entire church—one that would later become a hub for groceries, education, job training, and so much more.

Ephesians 3:20 declares, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (NIV). That’s the kind of God we serve. One who takes small yeses—like a school crossing guard, a donated bicycle, or a thrift store volunteer—and turns them into transformation. He’s not waiting for perfection. He’s looking for availability.

When you identify the need and respond with what you have, heaven gets involved. What begins as simple service becomes sacred ground. And slowly, your church starts to shift—not just in mission, but in mindset. You stop asking, “How do we grow our Sunday attendance?” and start asking, “Whose pain are we called to carry this week?”

That’s how a church becomes a first responder in its city.

Not with flashing lights or microphones, but with presence. With compassion. With obedience that shows up in the heat, in the mess, in the mundane.

Because in God’s economy, favor follows those who serve. And provision multiplies in the hands of those who pour themselves out.

So go ahead—see the need. Sow the seed. Watch what God will do next.