About Us

We believe that local missions should be as cool as global missions.

The people around us are hurting, and looking for hope. The Church is meant to reach these people, yet most of God’s disciples are not being deployed to meet community needs.

We believe Community Ministers are the solution.

Community Ministers are Christ Followers who are dedicated to connecting church congregations with local organizations and mobilize God’s people to serve. These collaborations meet the biggest needs represented in their communities, and they reach people for Christ in tangible and meaningful ways.

Matthew 25:35-36 & Ephesians 4:11-13

However, Community Ministers often lack community themselves.

That’s Where We Come In.

We focus on supporting and equipping a CM in every church by:

After an interview, vetted CMs are invited to join the CM Network via Membership.

Joining the Front Porch Platform provides local outreach leaders with connection to minds just like theirs via a private conversation platform free of ads or cluttered group chats. Here they can ask questions, get advice, and find support in ways unique to their specific situation. They also receive access to monthly zoom meetings to chat live with Community Ministers from around the United States, in addition to special perks like discounts on Summits and free printable resources.

For people outside the Network Membership, there are still many tools and benefits available!

Our years of local outreach research have connected us with some of the top local ministry experts across the country, and we have collaborated with them to create the CM Essentials Course! This course is a 9 week online class that meets live to train up new and current Community Ministers to be better equipped to handle the many complex facets of local outreach. To our knowledge, this is one of the only courses of its kind specifically tailored to faith-based local ministry training on a national scale.

Once per year, we host a CM Network Summit to bring the best minds together to discuss all things community ministry. This event is not limited to local outreach leaders or Network members, so we meet believers of all kinds in order to discuss topics like volunteer organization, meeting specific community needs, and avoiding ministry burnout. If you want a full immersion in the effects and goings on in local outreach, this event is for you!

Last but not least, we have many resources on our website to educate, connect, and inspire believers in all walks of life to better serve their own communities. Through our free blogs and podcast episodes, we hope you find new ways to live out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission through you and your church ministry.

There are many faces behind the CM Network, but it all started with an idea from Kent and Merilee Singletary.

Kent had worked with many Community Ministers from around the country during his 12 years working for Ramsey Solutions, and during that time he also saw incredible Kingdom transformation through a work project that enabled city wide church and non-profit collaboration in Kansas City. After seeing what lasting change was possible through this event, Kent and Merilee were inspired to find out more about who the unsung heroes were that made those events happen.

In just 1 year, they completed over 100 phone interviews with local outreach leaders from across the country.

Through their research, the need for a place where these leaders could learn and encourage each other was overwhelmingly clear. Thus, the CM Network was born.

Today…

260+ Interviews have been completed for local outreach research.

50+ Community Ministers have joined the CM Network

Community Ministers have been finding connection with others like them for 2 years and counting