Previous Post – Churches that Transform Neighbourhoods – 1

“More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems.

“My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets.  It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress.

“But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own and to let them know with words, handshakes and hugs that you do not simply like them- but truly love them.” – Henri Nouwen, ¡Gracias!

These words have always been a deeply important for me, not only as a reminder of how easily distracted I can became in the work of ministry, but more so as a vision of the kind of person I want to be and the kind of community I want to be a part of.  While it has not always been easy, I believe that Little Flowers Community is becoming this kind of family.

Our community is a small, inner city church plant made of up of amazing people from the neighbourhood (and a few from outside of it).  Predominately young women in their early twenties, Little Flowers has also become a place where people can come to feel welcomed, safe and loved.  We’ve worked hard at being a community where people know they are not judged, yet loved enough not to have their brokenness and sin ignored.  Because of this, many of the people who come to us are deeply wounded- the addicted, the abused, the rejected, the exploited.  People rejected as sluts, fags and retards.  And we really do love each other, sharing life, faith & mission out of our shared brokenness.

That can sound beautiful- and it is!- even romantic- which it is not!  I would not want to give up what we have.  And yet, what we have is threatened.  We are a small, young group of Christians that needs the wider Body of Christ.  Yes, we need your prayers, your volunteerism and your support.  These things are invaluable to us!  Of course we appreciate your financial contributions, your affirmation of our zeal and the honour to come and share our work with your communities.  It has meant the world to us!

It is just not enough.

More than anything, we need you.

We need you to be present with us.  We want to know as a friend and neighbourhood.  We need to break bread with you, not just once a month (or even once a week).  We want to hear your stories and have you hear ours.  We want to see you smile when you see us coming,  We want to know you with such familiarity that greeting with anything other than a hug would seem distant.

Again, please don’t miss the depth of this because of the romanticism or sentiment.  The long term health and sustainability of Little Flowers Community depends on people like you choosing to share life with us in deep and meaningful ways.  That is no small thing, because, as the quote above suggests, it is all too easy to fill our lives with “good things” to the point where we haven’t the time for such relationships.  It requires divestment and relinquishment.  It demands intentionality and choice.

The costs that such relationships require do not end there.  It will mean, for some, to leave other communities for the sake of joining our.  It might mean moving homes, schools and neighbourhoods to really, truly be present.  I want to make this clear because we are not asking for casual volunteers or occasional visitors.  We want you to “pitch your tent among us”.  This isn’t about sheep stealing, but about a community in great need, yet a community that has much to offer as well.  This is a Macedonian Call.

I love my community, but I am also afraid for it.  While there is much we can do (and are doing) as a community to mature and grow, we are also deeply convinced that what God wants for us next is something outside of our control.  The ball is no longer in our court.  So we extend the invitation.  We eagerly await your reply.  Know that this question is not rhetorical:

Will you join us?

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Last year, after a spree of violence in our inner city neighbourhood, myself & another local pastor decided that we needed to help facilitate better connection between the Christians who lived and worshiped in our area.  And so was born the Christian Collective – West End.  Once a month we get together for informal times of prayer, discussion, networking & friendship.  Little did we realize how quickly it would develop and how meaningful it would become to all of us.

It is not uncommon for these kinds of unexpected successes to happen outside the norm of our regular church programs and efforts.  It is my hope to share in this series some of the lessons we’ve learned in our neighbourhood (and others) about how churches can become meaningful agents of real change- kingdom builders- in their own neighbourhoods.

In the process of getting people involved in our Chiara House project, we’ve found ourselves benefiting a great deal from entrepreneurial Christians who’ve worked in the business world for years.  Many have commented to us at how excited they were to be asked to use their skills and experience for the kingdom, rather than just writing cheques- the typical expectation their receive from church projects.

As we look into our churches to assess the strengths and gifts that exist, we need to be careful to “pre-screen” people through the narrow lens of those typical expectations.  Don’t get me wrong, we need to be more aware of the dynamics spiritual and missional giftings in our people, but we also need to look at other gifts and skills through the kingdom lenses and see the possibility of what could be.

Part of the danger here is that the church is fairly adept at identifying (if not always effectively utilizing) gifts that serve the church within its own context.  We also need to look for those people who demonstrate the gifts that help build bridges between our churches and our neighbourhoods.  Often these people are seen in the exact opposite way- fringe people who might not fit our typical expectations- either because we see them as “counter-church” (as many tattooed and copiously pierced Christians have experienced) or because their strengths are too “secular” or “mundane” (as many Christian lawyers and engineers have experienced).  The point is this: we need to learn to see with new lenses to best assess the strengths and gifts that exist within our churches, gift that will take us out into our neighbourhoods in meaningful ways.

Those churches that do this often hit another snag at this stage.  Out of deeply well intentioned motives, they begin to look for the needs in the neighbourhood- crime, lack of day care, need for homework clubs, etc.- all important challenges with great opportunities.  However, when we begin to engage our neighbourhoods, if we begin with “fixing problems” we make two mistakes.  First, we can unintentionally communicate a superiority and/or paternalism to our neighbours.  The church in our culture doesn’t have a good enough reputation in the world to pull off that kind of authority- at least not yet.

The second mistake is define our community’s identity by what isn’t working, rather than discovering and celebrating what is.  In other words, just as we spent the time and energy to have new lenses with which to identify the strengths and gifts within the church, we now must come (as humble students) to discover the strengths and gifts within the neighbourhood.  Who are the community elders?  Who do the locals trust?  What has worked?  What has been tried, but failed?

When we begin with a community’s strengths before considering its failings, we choose to look at it through the lenses of God’s kingdom, seeing with redemptive imagination.  When we consider the strengths and beauty already present, what would the kingdom look like in your neighbourhood?  (Of course, this requires that we understand what the kingdom is in the first place, but that’s another topic altogether).  All too often, when churches consider how to “reach out” to their neighbourhood, they start with vision casting.  The well-intentioned mistake is that we are projecting from within our context expectations that might not be relevant.  Instead, we need to look for the signs of the Holy Spirit already at work and join in.

We have seen this process work, helping build incredible connections into our neighbourhood.  However, we did not realize what it would cost us.  In addition to the work, both physical and spiritual, we also were confronted with increased challenges.  Faced with the hard realities of these two worlds meeting (and if we are honest, we must admit that they are all too often very different worlds indeed), Christians will begin to feel anxious, uncertainty, even threatened.  The hard questions that such a process requires of us can make us feel like we are on a path towards a slippery slope of compromise.  While we (of course) need to be cautious, we also have to realize this reality and prepare people that such experiences are natural (ask any cross-cultural missionary).  This is the necessary and exciting reality of transformation- both in the community and in the church!

Finally, the biggest challenge in this process is one of leadership.  Anyone in church leadership knows that Christians are all too willing to turn to the professional leaders to make all the decisions, give all the direction and even do most of the work (and we all too often let them!).  This will limit, if not kill, the chance of this process succeeding.  The primary goal of leaders in this process is free people.  In other words, through identifying their gifts and strengths, give them the freedom (even require it of them) to step out as individuals and smaller groups.  Facilitate and mobilize, but do not overly organize and dictate.  Informal (and non-formal) groups of people can have surprising impact where programmed, affiliated groups often do not.

Again, this is the first in what I hope is several posts on churches that transform neighbourhoods.  For now, I’d like to hear from you:

What questions do you have about this?  What have you seen work?  What hasn’t?  Let us know!