Dino Rizzo is a celebrated clergyman with thirty-five years of ministry experience, including two decades of establishing and shepherding a megachurch. Dino Rizzo‘s extensive years of experience have empowered him to live, love, and lead with remarkable expertise, making him a valuable source of guidance and inspiration for many people.
Dino and his wife, DeLynn Rizzo, established Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge in 1993. The church began with just twelve people and grew to over 10,000 in weekly attendance across nine locations worldwide, focusing on serving the poor and the suffering.
Dino also established the Servolution movement, urging churches to unite and embark on a revolution of assisting others. Dino’s passion for outreach and mission work is evident in the numerous outreaches and programs Healing Place Church involves, from providing free medical and dental clinics to aiding ex-prisoners re-enter society.
Dino is also the co-founder and Chief of the ARC (Association of Related Churches), which has planted over 1000 churches worldwide.
Pastor Rizzo also serves on the Senior Leadership Team at Church of the Highlands, leading all areas of outreach, missions, prison ministries, dream centers, and Serve days.
Dino is a talented author who has written several books, including Serve Your City. He and his wife have been married for 34 years and have three adult children.
Serve Day is approaching in July. How have you seen churches grow and evolve in terms of their approach to serving the community?
There are so many great churches now. So many churches now understand the value of loving their city, that God’s called them to a city and a region.
One of the things that we all feel is that we love what happens in the church. We love our Sunday service; we love our connections, our growth tracks, and our dream teams. We love what comes from the church. And that’s the Serve Day and that’s outreach.
When we first started a church, we just didn’t have a lot to offer, but the one thing we could do is we could love people. We saw God move in great ways to Servolution here in Birmingham with Serve Day.
Pastor Chris [Hodges] has taken it to a whole other level because of the resources—the resources and, of course, great churches.
But it’s something else when a church says, “Hey, the pain of our community, the lack of our community, the hurt of our community, we’re going to bring the Gospel to that. We’re going to bring the hands and feet of Jesus.”
I think that’s so important in the world that we’re living in right now.
Can you speak a bit to churches that are still on the fence about participating in Serve Day, particularly the smaller churches out there?
I think it’s in the heart of everybody, and it will make a difference. You just want to help somebody. God’s been so good to you, what Jesus has done. Pastor Chris [Hodges] likes to talk about once you’ve received it, the greatest legacy is to distribute it.
Serve Day is July 15th, and thousands of churches will be participating. I love that we’re going to expand it. Because a lot of times, we thought, “We are too small. Man, we don’t have that much money. We don’t have enough people.”
But I always say, “Get started, do something.” If you can’t change the whole world, make a difference in one life.
The first outreach I ever did when I pastored was moving some single moms with a trailer. We had a failure to launch because the goal was too big, it had too many problems.
Encourage that small church, that small group, that college group that they can make a difference.
Why should people participate in Serve Day?
We see terrible things every day that shouldn’t be that way. We see a person struggling. We hear stories from the border. We hear stories of pain and trauma. And we think, “Man, it shouldn’t be that way.”
Well, what a generous church participating in Serve Day does is say, “Okay, well, if it shouldn’t be that way, then we should do something about it. What should we do something that shouldn’t be that way?”
You see that in the life of Jesus every day, how often He would go by the sick and the hurting and would just stop and do a good deed. We learned so much from those moments.
I serve at a generous church called [Church of the] Highlands, and there are so many generous churches represented on Serve Day.
I think about this in what the church is doing. And speaking about all the people that give. They’re faithful to their tithe, they’re faithful to their offer, and they give over and over again.
That mom who has two jobs, that guy who got up this morning there in your area, stood in a ditch, dug a ditch, went to fix a roof on the house, went and made a sales call, and brought their gift to the church. Do you know why? They want to make a difference.
