Capitol Ministries New Initiative—Reaching Local Public Servants For Christ

November 2014

As we continue to establish ministries in state capitols and reach across borders to other nations, Capitol Ministries is thinking small as we think big — we will be teaching local churches how to plant ministries right on Main Street in city and county governments across the United States.

CivicReach™, a video training series that will instruct pastors and congregations in how to reach their local Public Servants for Christ, was taped during Capitol Ministries November 4-8 Training Conference in Palm Desert, CA.

Available in spring of 2015, CivicReach™ will be distributed free to churches from Capitol Ministries website.

“There are more than 3,000 counties and 30,000 incorporated cities in the United States,” said Ralph Drollinger, President and Founder of Capitol Ministries. “Can you imagine the impact on our nation if each of those locales had an effective, biblical ministry of evangelism and discipleship in their midst?”

“We Evangelicals often quip that separation of church and state means that the state must stay out of the church, but not the other way around. But if we really believe churches can and should influence government, what are we doing to accomplish that?”

CivicReach™ is an effort that is applauded by Shawn Thornton, senior pastor of Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village, CA, who said churches will have a greater impact for the Gospel and a fuller engagement with the community by learning how to minister to local Public Servants.

“One specific group that we are told to reach for Christ is civic leaders,” Pastor Thornton said. “In the early church movement in the book of Acts, they would go into a city and it would be the leaders, the influential ones who would come to Christ first, and their influence would be a conduit through which the Holy Spirit would spread the Gospel to others.”

The nation as a whole will eventually benefit from these efforts as local Public Servants move up to state offices and for some, the US Congress, said Pastor Thornton, who added that Calvary Community Church will be involved in CivicReach™

“Connecting with Public Servants at that civic level gives churches the potential for deeper relationships that will spread wider and further as those people move up the ladder,” Pastor Thornton said. “They will take their biblical world view and the Gospel with them wherever they go.”