Go Fish!: "Where are the churches?"

“Where are the churches?”

That was my question as several hundred people swirled around me at the recent 8^th annual Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp in San Francisco.

Boot Camp is a one-day conference for staff and volunteers from a wide variety of nonprofit organizations. It includes speakers and workshops designed to give nonprofits the tools and skills needed to help communities. It’s also a great place for like-minded people to network and collaborate.

One of the amazing things that struck me was that in the sessions I attended was that I heard a government official and leaders of secular community groups say they wanted to collaborate with churches. They encouraged their audiences to invite congregations into partnerships to bless (my word) surrounding neighborhoods.

Yet, as I met people and heard people introduce themselves in the workshops, I wasn’t hearing or seeing representatives of churches or faith-based groups. That’s not to say they weren’t there, because they might have been and I just didn’t see them.

About mid-afternoon I thought, my church should be here. Which led me to my question above: “Where are the churches?”

Here were secular folks, the ones we often think don’t want to work with us, and they were encouraging other secular folks to reach out to churches.

One reason given for why government, nonprofits, churches and businesses need to work together is that the problems we face right now are too big for any one entity to solve them. Only through partnership and collaboration can we make communities whole and healthy again.

Toward the end of the day we broke up into groups to reflect on what we had learned during the day. One woman shared that she experienced an epiphany.

“As a librarian I go to a lot of library conferences,” she said. “I realized today I’m sick of going to library conferences because we talk to each other and never grow.”

Whoa.

Her words hit me hard. I could have taken out the word “library” and inserted “church.”

I go to a lot of church conferences. We talk to each other and we never grow.

I’m not suggesting that we stop going to church conferences. We need to come together, worship together, learn from each other, and be encouragers of each other.

But I would say don’t only go to church conferences. Seek out the places local government, community groups and businesses are hanging out together. Start brainstorming how all of you can work together to bless your community.

Just before I went to Boot Camp, I reported on an amazing community event put together by a faith-based organization called Beautiful Day. It’s a prime example of how churches, local government, and nonprofits can work together. More than 2,400 volunteers worked on 17 projects to refurbish schools and homes, help the homeless, minister to disabled youth, and more.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can see the two stories I wrote. One is about the event itself. The other is focused on one project, in which two retired police officers commanded 600 volunteers to refurbish an entire neighborhood. The photo above is from that project.

Where are the churches? Let's answer that question out in our communities by saying "Here we are!"

Go Fish!: The Heart of the Matter

Missional author Reggie McNeal talks a lot about the need for churches to have an external focus, rather than an internal one. We as church folks need to turn our focus out into the communities around us.

The best reason we need to shift our focus: God cares about the people who live around us. What's on their hearts is on God's heart. And so it should be in ours.

Do you know what's on the hearts of your neighbors? Truly on their hearts. Are they worried about how to support their families? Stressed by caring for older parents? Struggling in relationships with loved ones? Passionate about education?

And this is key: are you guessing, or do you really know? Have you asked them?

You could ask your congregation what they think is on the hearts of their neighbors, but resist that temptation. Your results may come back skewed. We're on the inside looking out, our neighbors are on the outside looking in (if they're even looking inside of where we are in the church). We in the church need an outsider's opinion.

There are a number of ways to seek that opinion. Here's a few suggestions:

• Meet with the police chief, or some police officers in your community; what do they see as the main needs of the people they serve? What do they as officers care about? Is there any support the church could offer them?
• Sit down with some of the executive directors of your community's social service agencies and non-profits. What do they see happening in the lives of "the least of these"? Where could church members make the most difference?
• Talk to the principals of your local schools. What do kids and youth need most in your community? What's on the principals' wish lists for materials or services?
• Start frequenting your local shops and restaurants; get to know owners and workers and ask them what they've noticed in the community.

You could probably come up with more ideas. These information-gathering techniques needn't be formal or organized. Making it a priority to talk with people, asking them what's important to them, and then really listening to them, that's all that's needed. In fact, don't even get into problem solving mode with them; save that for another time.

Ask God to give you new eyes to see what he sees, and new ears to hear what he hears. Most of all, ask God to give you a new heart that opens wide to include the people who are on God's heart.