Over the past two years, we’ve been in a campaign called “Irresistible,” where we set goals to share the irresistible love of Jesus in specific ways with our church, community, and the nations. Celebrate with us as we look back at what God has done in and through our church during this campaign!
Two Movements within the Irresistible Campaign
The Irresistible Movement was a two-year initiative to pray for and share the irresistible love of Jesus with more people. Our goals for this movement fell under two initiatives. Although we’ve reached the end of our two-year stretch, these goals remain at the forefront of the ministry of Abundant Life.
Initiative #1: Reach more people
The Not Ashamed movement involves finding your one to share the gospel with, lead to Christ, baptize, and disciple. We called people to commit to finding their one and update us as they built a relationship with them. Part of this involved people completing evangelism training to learn tools for sharing the gospel. During the Irresistible Campaign, we had 142 people complete evangelism training.
The Live Sent Ministry is how we are answering the call to be sent to the nations in our own cities and globally. Through this ministry, we are focused on reaching the unreached and serving the underserved in the greater Kansas City area and around the world. There are four ways we accomplished this goal during the Irresistible campaign:
- City Teams
The Live Sent city teams spend time in the Kansas City community caring for refugees, immigrants, and international students. During the Irresistible Campaign, we were able to build new relationships with partners and foster existing ones to share the irresistible love of Jesus with people coming into our city. Some of these partners include…
- The Hope Center for Inner City Youth
- Welcome Center for Immigrant Refugee Children
- Agape Pamoja for African Refugees
- International Student Ministry
- Food Pantry
The Abundant Life Food Pantry serves the community by providing basic needs like food, hygiene items, and clothes. In 2023, the pantry served 92,576 people, and in 2024, we served over 100,000 people.
This is made possible in part by the generous donations of members who participated in Bags by the Bumper on the first Sunday of the month. Through this ministry opportunity, the food pantry received 28,817 pounds of non-perishable items and several thousand pounds of perishable items.
Additionally, the food pantry distributed over 2,100 Thanksgiving Boxes to our community and local school districts in 2024.
- Refugees
In addition to the gifts and food distributed through our Welcome Center, Abundant Life has partnered with Agape Pamoja to support refugees through home restoration, faith-based education, discipleship, celebrations, and leadership development.
- Prison
The vision of the Irresistible Campaign was to serve, encourage, and minister to those in prison as we share the gospel and be living proof of God’s love.
Pastor Phil’s vision to share the gospel with prisoners stems from Jesus’s commands in Matthew 25. Through a connection with a ministry partner at another church, we were introduced to God Behind Bars. This partnership enables us to fulfill God’s calling to Abundant Life to launch campuses in prisons.
While outreach hasn’t begun yet, approximately 30 volunteers are in the process of completing background checks and obtaining approval from the Department of Corrections to do ministry in the prison. The new campus is set to launch at the Tipton Correctional Center on March 9, 2025, with team training scheduled for February 22, 2025, in collaboration with God Behind Bars and the Missouri DOC.
During the Irresistible Campaign, we had several goals for campus expansion.
- Crossroads of Kansas City
We renovated a building at our Crossroads Campus to be a counseling center during the week and an area for kid’s ministry on Sundays. The space had its grand opening in October 2024. The space has been a blessing to the kids who attend the Abundant Life Crossroads Campus on Sunday and serves the Kansas City community through weekly counseling sessions.
- Johnson County
We also wanted to launch another campus in Johnson County, Kansas, and the Lord provided the funds and the building for this to happen. Right now, the Johnson Country campus has an average attendance of around 425 people on Sunday mornings and has approximately 200 volunteers. The building is currently under construction and we anticipate being fully open to the community in 2025. We are excited to use this 1200-seat auditorium and building space to see lives changed by Jesus on the Kansas side of the metro.
Initiative #2: Equip families through Family Ministry
The goal of this part of the Irresistible Campaign was to provide resources and tools to strengthen and disciple families. The launch of the Family Ministry allows us to minister to families in several ways, including…
Our goal in this ministry is to partner with and support birth, adoptive, and foster families. During the Irresistible Campaign, we were able to host several events for these families. We also launched Care Communities that provide regular and ongoing help to foster families and foster children in our church. Read a story about the impact of the foster ministry in our church here!
The Abundant Life Homeschool Center was created to help engage, enrich, and equip homeschool parents as the primary educators of their children. In addition to supporting homeschool families, the ministry coordinates graduations for homeschooled students and comes alongside parents and families to celebrate their children’s big milestones.
In 2024, the ministry had 380 students and 54 staff running the classes and clubs. The classes and clubs allow homeschooled students from kindergarten through 12th grade to learn in a fun and safe atmosphere with a faith-based approach.
The Special Needs Ministry celebrated several milestones during the Irresistible Campaign! The heart of this ministry is to help children and adults with special needs learn and grow in a setting conducive to their needs. In 2024, we hosted 8 respite night events that averaged around 50 families and 100 volunteers each.
In 2024, we partnered with SOAR Special Needs for SOAR Camp at the Lee’s Summit campus. There were 91 participants in the camp and over 275 volunteers who gave their time to make this a memorable summer for the campers. We also consistently hosted adult socials at the Lee’s Summit campus, averaging about 25 adults with disabilities a month.
The Family Ministry also saw the launch of the Merge and Re|engage classes to help couples have healthy relationships and marriages. Merge prepares engaged and seriously dating couples to start fighting for their marriages before they begin. Through the class, these couples receive practical and spiritual tools they can apply to have a marriage that lasts. In 2024, 76 couples completed Merge.
Re|engage helps married couples reignite, resurrect, and reconnect in a safe place. Through this ministry, we have seen many marriages restored. In 2024, we celebrated 43 couples who graduated from the ministry. Watch this video to hear from the Ridings family on the power of Re|engage for blended families.
5. Castles Parenting Conference
Abundant Life hosted the first Castles Parenting Conference in the Fall of 2023. The conference included various breakout sessions to help parents build their families on the foundation of God’s Word. We are celebrating the many families and lives that were changed as a result of this conference. If you missed the conference, you can watch the recorded sessions here!
We also launched the Castles Family Discipleship Curriculum, which includes content from the conference and Castles sermons. The seven-week discipleship curriculum takes families through the biblical foundations of how God created them. In 2024, 198 people completed the Castles curriculum between in-person classes, online meetings, and off-campus groups.
Continuing the Irresistible Campaign
Our focus during this initiative was to cross cultural boundaries, share Christ with people across the world, and discover and execute strategies that reach the nations. We asked our church members to get involved in three ways:
- Pray and ask God how He would like you to share the irresistible love of Jesus.
- Commit by giving or increasing your giving to support the ministry and outreach at Abundant Life.
- Serve with us to see lives changed by Jesus, participate in the multiplication of the gospel, leave legacies, and care for the lost and “least of these.”
During the Irresistible Campaign, we heard stories from people in our church who are serving the body of Christ and our community in these ways. Here are just a few stories!
Partner with Us in 2025!
Leading people to know, follow, and love Jesus isn’t always easy. We believe the power of showing the irresistible love of Jesus is multiplied when we come together as the Body of Christ, working together to pray for, disciple, and support others.
Our next two-year initiative, The A-Life, kicks off in March 2025. Learn more about this discipleship journey, our vision for the A-Life, and how you can live the abundant life that Jesus offers!