This article presents a community mobilization strategy that focuses on the dynamics of organizing church communities to implement and evaluate alcohol and other drug (AOD) abuse prevention programs. Although the literature abounds with extensive discussions and case studies of community practice models, it clearly lacks documentation of successful strategies for empowering communities to engage in program implementation and evaluation. A model community mobilization strategy is described that highlights the involvement of church congregations in family recruitment, retention and replication of AOD prevention programs. The evaluation of the strategy provides evidence of the success in rural, suburban, and urban settings. Key lessons are presented to stimulate implementation of the model mobilization strategy in other church communities.

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