Cracking the Outreach Code in Your City with Quovadis Marshall

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today, we’re talking with Quovadis Marshall (Pastor Q), Lead Pastor at Hope City Church in Waterloo, Iowa. Caught up in a life of gangs and violence, he became incarcerated at nineteen years old. However, Pastor Q experienced a life-transforming encounter with Christ through the Prison Fellowship Academy Program. Now he leads a thriving, outreach-focused church that’s deeply embedded in the life of its local community. Is your church truly aware of your city’s needs? Are you engaging in a way that brings hope to overlooked or hurting parts of your community? Tune in as Pastor Q explores how churches can build bridges to their local neighborhoods and become known for joy, healing, and transformation. Find your city’s needs. // Every community has a story beyond its polished exterior. Start by asking questions: What are people struggling with? What are students and teachers experiencing in the school system? Where is there pain? Look for the deeper needs that may not be visible on the surface.Crack the outreach code. // Every city has a unique “code” for outreach, and every church has a core strength or competency. The key is aligning those two things—cracking your city’s code and contributing your church’s unique gifts. That’s where you’ll see the biggest spiritual return for Christ.Listen in the local community. // Pastor Q encourages leaders to get out and talk to people at the “watering holes” of the city—those central hubs where families, students, and residents gather and you can get a pulse on the community’s needs. Reach out to schools, civic leaders and nonprofits in the area. Ask residents what their pain points and aspirations are. Listening with empathy is the first step in meaningful outreach.Create partnerships. // Rather than creating new ministries from scratch, find local nonprofits already meeting needs and partner with them. Cultivate rhythms of celebration within your church in order to build relationships with people in the community, hear their stories, and encourage one another.Be the church known for joy. // Strive to be the kind of church people associate with joy—much like how people were drawn to Jesus. At Hope City Church they intentionally work to build a life-giving culture through three rhythms: internal celebrations (big days like Christmas and Easter), external celebrations (such as fall festivals), and external communications (stories of life change).Angel Tree: A practical next step. // Through Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree, Hope City began serving children of incarcerated parents. For Pastor Q, this was personal—his daughter received Angel Tree gifts while he was in prison. The church now delivers gifts, hosts Christmas parties for Angel Tree recipients, and uses the opportunity to build long-term relationships with affected families.Planting a campus in prison. // Hope City didn’t stop with Angel Tree gifts. In partnership with Prison Fellowship Academy, they now run a full prison campus where 100 incarcerated men worship, serve, and are discipled every week. Thirty men have been baptized. It’s not just a broadcast—it’s church. Volunteers serve weekly, and the church views this ministry as a full extension of their body, not merely a project. Learn more about Hope City Church at www.myhopecity.net and discover how you can get involved with Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program at www.prisonfellowship.org/about/angel-tree/. EXTRA CREDIT // Inbox to Impact – Outreach Email Swipe File for Churches In this episode, Pastor Quovadis Marshall shares how listening well unlocked transformational outreach at Hope City Church. Want to do the same in your city? We’ve created a helpful resource to help you take action: Inbox to Impact is a swipe file of copy-and-paste emails your church can send to civic leaders, school officials, nonprofit directors, and more — all designed to open doors for listening and relationship-building. Get access to the resource if you’re an unSeminary Extra Credit member. Not a member yet? Join now and get instant access to this and other practical tools for church leaders. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. You’re going to want to lean in. This is going to be a conversation that’s going to impact all of us. I really think it’s we’...