Tag Archive for: Engagement

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Begin to Engage the Community – Part 5

Engaging the community is about God’s business. It is about following Jesus into the community and relating to and loving others within the community.

To help resource you in Engaging the Community, we have explored The Seven Missional Questions (Engaging in Mission: Engaging the Community), have done an overview of koinonia, the New Testament understanding of community (Engaging in Mission: Engaging the Community Part 2), and explored the components of mission (Engaging in Mission: Engaging the Community Part 3).  

What do we need to do that no one else is doing?

As you focus on God’s business, one way to discover your particular focus is to ask God, “What do we need to be doing that no one else is doing?” God will answer your prayer by opening opportunities you may not have considered. By broadening your perspective on the community, you will begin to recognize where God is working.

God might lead you to a partnership with a local elementary or middle school. As simple as it sounds, few churches are in partnership with the schools in the community they serve.

So, let me say it this way: One tangible way to be about God’s business is to partner with a school in your community. In partnership with children, you can grow personally as a follower of Jesus as you share the love of God unselfishly. In conversation with school administrators and teachers, you learn ways to develop relationships of love and care.

God might lead you to a feeding or housing ministry. Most churches find participating in these ministries relatively easy. Whether it be a food pantry, serving meals, or participating in building a Habitat for Humanity home, you have the opportunity to grow as a follower of Jesus as you actively respond to meeting immediate needs in the community.

So, responding to basic human needs such as food and housing is another tangible way to be a part of God’s business of loving people as God has loved you.

Praying for Your Community

God might lead you to pray for the first responders in your community. What better ministry is there than to hold before God the well-being, safety, and families of the people who serve the community in which you live. Praying for police officers, firefighters, and other first responders keeps you focused on the community and helps you develop a pattern of prayer for your own life and well-being.

So, as you seek to engage in mission in the community, it is only natural to pray. Prayer is another tangible way to be about God’s business in the community. The fact is, you will be blessed by God as you respond to the invitation to be a part of something that no one else is doing.

In one church I had the opportunity to lead, we prayed, “What do we need to do no one else is doing?” God led us to a local HIV/AIDS Clinic. As we developed a partnership with the clinic, we developed a ministry of love, care, prayer, and compassion for people who were pushed to the margins of the community. We provided what the clinic said they needed to serve their clients. As we partnered with the clinic, God provided a place for us to develop relationships and to grow as followers of Jesus as we gave ourselves in love and care to God’s children in the community.

Follow God’s Lead

I am sure you have gotten my point. When you ask the question, God will lead you into your community, into your ministry context, and provide opportunities for you to love and care for others as God has loved and cared for you.

As you seek to engage in mission in your community, God will lead you to places you might not have considered. Just ask God the question, “What do we need to do that no one else is doing?”

To help with your engagement in the community, read the following story from Matthew:

Read Matthew 25:31-46

When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep in his right hand and the goats at the left.

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,  for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.”

Reflect: What are you doing? 

Matthew uses a parable of Jesus to help his readers to understand holy or righteous living. He is not telling them what they should be doing but is showing them what they are doing.

Parables are not mirrors of morality but are reflections of reality. In teaching us how to live a holy and righteous life before God, Jesus tells a parable to help us understand how we live in a relationship with God and our neighbors.

The Reality of Our Living

The parable is often used out of context to tell people or to encourage people to respond to human need. It is used out of context when it is used to say “we should” feed people, or care for people, or work for the good of others.  Feeding, caring, and working for the good of others is good and needed work, but that is not the point of parable.

The parable reflects how we are living our lives in feeding, caring, and working for the good of other ways. In other words, it reveals the reality of our living.

So, what does this parable have to do with “What do we need to do that no one else is doing?” 

Recognize Jesus

To engage in mission in the community, you must be able to recognize Jesus in the people you are being called and led to serve. Jesus offers the invitation to follow him into the community. It is following Jesus so closely, that you can recognize and respond to God’s call and invitation to “do what no one else is doing.”

Tom Long, retired Bandy Professor of preaching at Candler School of Theology, attended a Presbyterian Church in downtown Atlanta. Like many downtown churches, it had a ministry with people living on the streets. During the winter, when the church opened its gymnasium to provide shelter, people from the congregation would serve as hosts and hostesses.

On one occasion, Long volunteered to be a host for the night. When his night came to serve, he invited a friend to come and serve with him for the evening. His friend was not a church member but enjoyed engaging in conversation about faith and religious matters. He would often say, “Tom, I’m not a theologian, but it seems to me…,” and then he would express his opinion.

On the night Long was hosting the shelter, the two greeted the men as they arrived. They ensured each man had something to eat and a place to sleep. Both Tom and his friend hung out with the men for a while before they began to retire for the night. Tom’s friend said, “Tom, you get some sleep. I will stay with them the first watch, then I’ll wake you up, and you can come and stay with them for the rest of the night.”

So, the friend stayed up and mingled with the guests, listened to them, and asked questions about who they were, what had happened to them in their lives that they were now homeless. At 2:00 AM he went in to awaken Tom. He said, “Wake up! Wake up! I want you to come and see this. I am no theologian, but I think that Jesus is down there.”

As Tom Long tells the story, he says quoting Jesus, “Those who show hospitality to the least of these have done it to me.”

By asking the question, “What do we need to do that no one else is doing?” God is reflecting back to you the love you are offering to Jesus in and through the people you meet, care for, and serve. So, what is it that we need to be doing that no one else is doing?

Respond

Where are you seeing Jesus in your community and in the ministry of your congregation? What are you doing that no one else is doing in the community? How are you responding to the needs and assists of your community? How are you bringing needs and assists together to engage the people of your church in mission in the community? As Jesus invites you into the community, where will you start? What assistance do you need to get started?

Prayer

O God, I am grateful for your call upon my life and for the opportunity to be a leader centered upon your love in Jesus. By your grace, give me eyes to recognize you in the people I meet each day. Give me ears to hear your voice above all other voices. Give me faith to assist people in growing in their faith. Give me the courage to lead people into the community to love others as you have loved me. Thank you for your love, which will never let me go, and that enables me to love and trust you more. Amen.  

Return

Give God thanks for the people you encountered today. In whom did you see Jesus? With whom did you experience something new? Who did you encounter who needed special love and care? What do you need to be doing that no one else is doing? What did you learn that you will do differently tomorrow? Give God thanks for the opportunities you had to become more who God has created you to be.

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Begin to Engage Your Community – Part 3 – Koinonia

Engaging the community is about God’s business. It is about following Jesus in relating to and loving others within the community in which you are located.

To help resource you in Engaging the Community, let’s focus on two distinct community ideas. The first is koinonia found in the New Testament. The second is the community in which your congregation is located. In both communities, you can share the gospel and grow your relationship with Jesus and the people entrusted to your care.  

To focus on these two concepts, remember that you are about God’s business. So, through the lens of being a follower of Jesus, what does it mean to live in community with other followers of Jesus and what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus in a diversity of people and beliefs?  

It is important to know and understand koinonia as you engage the community in which you are located. So, let’s start with koinonia, the New Testament understanding of fellowship or community.   

Read Acts 2:42:47 

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.  

Reflect on Acts 2

The first followers of Jesus, “…devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship…” Gathering in community was important. It is mentioned three times: They devoted themselves to “fellowship” (verse 42), “All who believed were together” (verse 44), and “Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple…” (verse 46). Being together was an important characteristic of their faith development.  

Koinonia

This fellowship was known as “koinonia.” Before describing what “koinonia” is, let’s identify what it is not. Koinonia is not formal gatherings for potluck dinners nor informal gatherings of people who are like us. It is neither being a part of a country or civic club nor is it like being a part of a service organization. Koinonia is more than participating in worship. All of these are good and needed, but they do not describe what those early followers of Jesus experienced as koinonia. 

Koinonia for them was gathering to listen and learn of the gospel (apostles’ teaching). They were trying to make sense of what they had experienced at Pentecost. Gathering was to eat together, (breaking bread). It was an expression of God’s love, agape, working for the good of others, especially those who had little to eat. Gathering to pray (prayers). They gathered with glad and generous hearts in gratitude to God, seeking direction on how to live their lives as followers of Jesus. 

Koinonia and John Wesley

It is this same koinonia that John Wesley experienced when he expressed that “I felt my heart strangely warmed, I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”  

Wesley was motivated to establish a koinonia system to help others, whose hearts were also “strangely warmed.” He was surrounded by people who not only wanted to hear the gospel but wanted to experience it. They lived in a time of spiritual apathy in which there was a disconnect between themselves and their faith. There was also an institutional disconnect that created disillusionment and distrust of the church.  

Wesley’s Aldersgate experience became a model for heartfelt faith. For the people whose hearts were warmed by God’s love, Wesley developed a system to help keep the heartfelt faith alive with experiences of care, support, encouragement, and correction.  

Koinonia and Methodism

He developed community by using class meetings and bands in which followers of Jesus were nurtured in faith and held accountable with compassion. People cared for and looked after each other’s souls. It was in the fellowship where loving hearts set other hearts on fire.  

Koinonia was woven into the DNA of those early Methodist Christians. Whether you are a United Methodist or not, this koinonia has shaped your faith as a Jesus follower. It is an essential experience in assisting you in becoming who you are created to be.  

Embodying Koinonia

Although I did not know it then, my earliest memories of faith are of people teaching, caring, supporting, and encouraging me in the faith community. Whether it was a fourth-grade Sunday school teacher telling me I would go somewhere else in the world to tell others of Jesus, a junior high school teacher who taught me to pray and to listen for God to speak, a high school teacher who cried with the class the day after a major disaster, or the Jesus followers who nurtured me in faith with compassion from a child to an adult, koinonia was part of my experience in becoming who I am today.  

Over the years, I have attempted to develop koinonia through small groups or other fellowship experiences. Still, the most common experience in which I have experienced koinonia is when it was woven into the fabric of the community of faith. It was when other followers of Jesus, whose hearts were warmed with God’s love, shared their faith and love with one another, the larger community, and the world.  

Heartfelt Faith

As a follower of Jesus and a Christ-centered leader, you lead with a heartfelt faith. There are two aspects of this heartfelt faith: the experience of God’s love in each individual’s life and the gathering of followers of Jesus who have experienced God’s love. Think clearly about providing opportunities for the “warm heart” and the structures of care that will lead to transforming individual lives, communities, and the world.  

When Wesley insisted that “true Christianity cannot exist without the inward experience and the outward practice of justice, mercy, and truth,” he gave us our focus on koinonia.  

So, take a moment to reflect upon these questions for yourself:

  • How is my relationship with Jesus growing in depth and expression?
  • How am I living out my heart being warmed by God’s love?
  • How do I grow in faith and live out my faith in meaningful ways? 

Take a moment to reflect upon this question for your faith community:

  • Am I developing the structures of care where people can grow in grace and discipleship, where the fruits of the spirit are being cultivated, and where loving hearts are setting others’ hearts on fire?  

The early followers of Jesus “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship…” So, one of the characteristics of engaging the community is to develop koinonia, Christian community. 

Respond

Beware of moments when your heart is “strangely warmed” by the presence of Jesus in the lives of the people you encounter and in the situations you find yourself today. Continue to be mindful of how you are growing in faith and living in God’s love.  Be intentional in extending God’s love to the people around you. Ask God to help you be a blessing to someone, somewhere today. 

Prayer 

O God, thank you for your fellowship so I can grow in my faith. By your grace, continue introducing me to people who can provide care, support, instruction, and correction. Thank you for the ways you have provided for me to become more of the person you have created me to be. Give me the faith to trust you more. Make me aware of the people around me today so that I might become a blessing to someone, somewhere today. I offer myself to be in koinonia with you in the name of Jesus. Amen. 

Return

Give God thanks for the people you encountered today. In whom did you meet Jesus? How was your heart strangely warmed? What structures did you put in place to give others care, support, encouragement, and hope? What do you need to do to lead others into koinonia? Give God thanks for the opportunities you had to become more who God has created you to be. 

As you learn and grow in engaging the community, keep in mind, who you are is how you lead.

Next, we will look at the second concept of community in Part Four of Beginning to Engage the Community.

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The Hope of Engagement

Is it possible for the church to be a center of hope and healing in your community? If so, what needs to happen to make it so?

Consider the people in your community this week of Thanksgiving and beyond. When we pause to reflect on how the church can be the center of hope and healing, we consider engagement with people in our communities all year.

Penny Lernoux described engagement in the community and the world this way, “You can look at a slum or peasant village, but it is only by entering into the world, by living in it, that you begin to understand what it is like to be powerless, to be like Christ.”

hope transforming mission

What is Engagement?

  • It is living grace and truth in the communities in which we live.
  • Engagement is reaching out and receiving people, offering Christ by living and loving as God in Christ has loved us, growing in a Christian community, and living out our faith in the communities in which we live.
  • Engagement is the weaving together of Wesley’s “personal piety and social holiness” in the development of relationships with the community. Wesley modeled care and compassion for the hungry and hurting. He knew at the center of life-transformation were relationships with people in a variety of life circumstances.

What would happen if your congregation began to “enter the community” to develop relationships with local schools, with people living in poverty, with health care facilities? What would happen if you began to pray with people from your congregation, “What do we need to do that no one else is doing?”

We believe you would take a giant step toward, not only offering hope but, by becoming hope.

Extend the Table Throughout the Year

As we celebrate the ways we bless people from Thanksgiving to Christmas, we also pause. What we do at the end of the year offers hope to our communities. We celebrate the connections we make with people, the ways needs are met during the winter, and the joy that comes from being a blessing to others.

We also know hope is needed the entire year.

Perhaps what you do this week and in the weeks to come to engage with people in your community will be the spark for a quarterly, monthly, or occasional experience with your community. Said more directly, our hope is the relationships you nurture in the coming weeks will be seeds of hope for your engagement in the community in 2019.

Whatever this week and the weeks ahead bring for you and the church, may you consider how God is inviting you to be an agent of hope.

Hope for A Blessed Thanksgiving

Tomorrow we will celebrate with family and friends. We will serve meals in our communities and perhaps enjoy a football game on television. There will be laughter and conversation, new connections and reunions. While we gather, we ask you to consider how we can intentionally extend the table throughout the year.

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy.”

-Philippians 1:3-4

It is our hope that as you continue leading people to follow Jesus by engaging in the community, there will be one who will say to you, “I thank my God every time I remember you…”

We give God thanks for you and your leadership. We are grateful for how God has shaped and enriched our lives through you. May each of you be as blessed as you have been a blessing.

O God, by your grace, shape us into your loving presence in the world. Thank you for the opportunity to be partners with you in your work of transformation in Jesus’s name. Amen

-Tim Bias and Sara Thomas

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Hope in Uncertain Times

Each of us faces times of uncertainty in our lives. Uncertainty comes with death or disaster. It comes with divorce, unemployment, or retirement. It comes with disappointment, lack of security, or the fear of the unknown.

Personally, I have come through several times of uncertainty. Times of not knowing what the future might hold and being paralyzed in regard to what decisions to make. I have felt I was caught in a place I had never been before.

Recently, I faced a time of uncertainty so great that I could not see beyond the moment. Uncertain about my future, I felt confused, hurt, and alone.

Facing the Future

It was at that point, in my anxiety, that a colleague and friend stepped in to help me face my future. I didn’t get a lot of sympathies, shallow agreements, or unrealistic platitudes. What I did get was a person of faith who allowed me to be me at the moment of my greatest need.

She created a space for me to talk about my disappointments, hurts, fears, and anxiety. Although there were times she did not agree with my assessments, she never passed judgment. She listened with compassion and, at the appropriate time, asked me questions I needed to answer for clarity and healing.

She offered Christ by embodying God’s grace. I began to trust her compassion and look forward to her questions. The space she created and the grace she offered allowed me to move past my anxiety to see new possibilities beyond what I had known or experienced up to that point in my life.

Healing and Hope

Within the process of healing, she provided opportunities to put into practice the new possibilities that were beginning to emerge. Along with plans for reading and reflecting on scripture, occasions to practice the presence of God through prayer and conversation, and the challenge to look beyond myself to see what new thing God might be doing, I was invited to put my faith into action. It was at that point I rediscovered God’s desire, to use me, to make a difference in the places I encountered the people God wanted me to love.

It was in and through her engagement in my life that this Jesus follower helped me experience hope in a time of uncertainty. She did not bring easy answers. In fact, she did not bring any answers.

She did bring God’s promises to bear on my uncertainty. She came alongside me, at the moment of greatest anxiety, embodying God’s love, to journey with me through my most difficult moments, to see what God might have in store for the future. She was an instrument of God’s hope.

Hope in Uncertain Times

It is stating the obvious to say that we live in a time of great turmoil. People are killed not only in the streets but in their places of prayer. We are experiencing the deliberate strategy of fear and hate that has turned into violence. If I had to choose one diagnosis for what wounds people the most today, I would say that the root of the fear and hatred is found in uncertainty.

People lack certainty in their jobs, in the economy, in their children’s future. They are asking questions like, “Will my pension be enough?” “Will my job last?” “Will there be a place for me?” I know that some of you are uncertain about the future of our United Methodist Church. We are trying to hang on to what we know and we are wondering what will happen if it turns out differently than what we expect.

Agents of Hope

I am convinced, that in this time of uncertainty, God is ready for the congregations of the Capitol Area South District to be agents of hope. We are the people to bring the great promises of God to bear on this time and place in history. So, why don’t we become agents of hope?

Let’s create spaces for conversation, where we can talk about our fears, disappointments, and uncertainty. Let’s create places of trust where, even if we disagree, no one is judged for their thoughts, feelings, or opinions. Listen with compassion and offer hospitality even in the midst our uncertainty.

Let’s offer Christ by embodying God’s grace. The space we create and the grace we offer will allow individuals and churches, to see new possibilities beyond what they have known or experienced up to this point.

Let’s put the new possibilities that begin to emerge into practice. And if no new possibilities emerge, let’s just be Christian in our living. Let’s come together as congregations and pray for the people that no one else wants and put our faith into action by receiving the people God sends to us. These simple acts of faith will help us rediscover God’s love and we will begin to love our communities the way God in Christ has loved us.

Engagement Brings Hope

Friends, colleagues, readers, it will be in and through our engagement in the lives of individuals, our churches, and our communities, that we will experience hope during our uncertainty. There are no easy answers. We have not come this way before. But, because of the faith God has given us, we can bring God’s promises to bear on this moment. We can become instruments of hope for this time and place.

Let’s come alongside the people with whom we live, work, and serve. Let’s embody God’s love and journey together through these difficult moments to see what God might have in store for the future.

The people around us, our families, our churches, our communities, are longing for hope to face the future. God has placed in our hands “the single most indispensable, non-negotiable, irreplaceable resource required for big challenges and noble battles.” It is the power of HOPE.

So, let’s give people what they are longing for. Let’s give them hope in these uncertain times.

 

 

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An Encouraging Word – Part 4

The Encouragement of Sharing Scripture and Prayer

We’ve explored the power of words in Part 1, 2, and 3 of this series and explored the biblical foundation of encouragement from one of Paul’s writings. Over the next few days I will share some of the encouraging words I have received from others. Encouraging words are intended to be shared. The first encouraging word comes from my childhood.

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Three Approaches to Missional Engagement

How do we engage in missions? Below are three approaches to missional engagement. There are other ways to characterize these experiences. As you’ll soon see, sometimes one of these approaches is more prevalent than others.

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