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Our church's most successful outreach program has been a playgroup started by the Pastor's wife.  

The playgroup is a weekly meeting where parents or grandparents bring in their babies and toddlers to play together.  Parents get to talk about taking care of children.  The Pastor's wife and some other volunteers get the time to talk with parents one-on-one about Christ.  Many families have joined the church from this program.  

The reason why this program has been successful is because there are other playgroups around that are run by the city.  They are more expensive.  People come to the church one because it is inexpensive and they don't have to pay all at once.  It is also run by church volunteers who like to share their experience with Christ.

Another program that wasn't successful was a cooking class.  An outside community group was running the program and the church let them use the kitchen.  A church volunteer was always there to help.   They complained about the Christian witnessing and free Bibles and pamphlets offered to the people in the cooking class.  After all, that is what a church does, tells people about Christ.  Soon there was a conflict and the staff of the cooking class started treating the church volunteers very badly.  The classes ended up being cancelled.  If the church had of run the cooking classes, it might have been more successful.

Churches should be careful about who they lend space to.  Preferably all programs should be run by the church and by church members.  The purpose of the programs such not just be to cook or play, they should be a way to introduce the Good News to others who may not see why they should attend Sunday services.  Many people will come to Sunday Services if they are invited by someone they know.  

Funerals, weddings, baptisms, dedications are all good opportunites to witness.  Many people often will attend a special Christmas or Easter service or musical program.  These holidays should not just be an entertaining events but more opportunites to witness.

Church members might need to take a course to be trained in ways to share their faith.  Many churches are not committed to doing this.  This makes me very say because I feel if we just don't tell people about Christ so many souls will be lost.    

I know the feeling of sadness you speak of, how do we make change happen in our churches, in ourselves?

The goal of church outreach programs should be to tell people that Jesus died for their sins.  It should clearly communicate the need for them to confess their sins, repent of their sins (stop sinning) and mend their relationship with God.  

Giving people food and clothing or addiction counselling or craft lessons is secondary. The primary intention of the outreach should be to attend to the spiritual welfare of the people in need.  Yes, someone who is hungry will go to a church to get feed even if they are "prayed at".  Eventually they might try praying with the outreach worker and then on their own.  This is why Jesus told the paralyzed man that his sins were forgiven, then he told him to get up and pick up his mat.  Jesus first healed the man's spirit and then healed his body.  Even if someone's body or poverty or addiction is not made right, if their soul is saved and wiped clean of sin, they will go to heaven.  The soul is more important than the body.  

When outreach workers stop caring for the souls of the people they are trying to help, it is wrong and really heartless.  It is heartless to give physical charity without spiritual charity.  How can we offend someone by telling them that we will pray for them?  How are we offending them by asking them to pray with us for them?  If someone in need says they don't believe in God or they hate God, there is hope for them to believe.  So why deny them any hope?  If we do not give spiritual charity we are really wishing them to hell.  

[quote author=M
Our church's most successful outreach program has been a playgroup started by the Pastor's wife.  

The playgroup is a weekly meeting where parents or grandparents bring in their babies and toddlers to play together.  Parents get to talk about taking care of children.  The Pastor's wife and some other volunteers get the time to talk with parents one-on-one about Christ.  Many families have joined the church from this program.  

Amen M.
We have a young moms day at the church with babysitting for the toddlers.It brings in about 50-70 women,[unchurched and many unsaved] For awhile it just became a ladies day off.with secular topics and doings,but the new pastors said that this is not the work of the kingdom.There needs to be christian content here.So we shall see.

Another thing our church does is have a car care clinic for the poor in the church and the community.
It started out with just a couple dozen cars getting an oil change and a quick check up.We would fill the forms out so the people would know the needs of the car.

Got all of the oil filters and oil for free.Canadian tire and Walmart both helped out.
Now the program has gone over the whole city.Each church has a couple dozen cars to service on the car care clinic day,held once per year.
Appreciated,yes.Any salvations out of it?not yet.That is because there are no concrete plans or efforts in the area of evangelism.This,most definitely should have been the first step.

These are things that churches should be doing for the community without regards of any sort of "profit". If we put it into "how many souls does it save" then it becomes a ministry that is trying to "buy" souls.

We should be doing such good works because we Love the Lord and this is what He wants us to do. Yes, He does want us to lead people to Him. We plant the seed....  One of the ways we do this is to let our light so shine by helping people in the community. Whether or not someone does or does not get saved through these good works should not be a pivot point of whether we do these things or not.