June 5, 2019

This is the first of two posts today (June 12, 2019). Last week I was working from home as I wasn’t feeling well and somehow failed to post this!

As we continue to work our way through 50 ways to connect our church with the wider community, we turn to thinking about what it means to “Turn Your Existing Ministries Outward”. These posts are inspired by the work of Robert Crossman, Ann A. Michel, Kim Mitchel, and Lovett H. Weems, Jr., as found in the article https://www.churchleadership.com/50-ways/50-ways-to-take-church-to-the-community/from the Lewis Centre for Christian Leadership.

So, let’s consider the following three ideas (The thought from the original article appears in blue, with my commentary underneath as it applies to us in our context at CHWUC).

“Turn your existing ministries outward”

Step 23. Challenge each church group with an inside focus to find a way to become involved with the community outside the church. A choir might sing at a nursing home, or trustees could sponsor a neighborhood clean-up.

Consider, what activity outside the church walls would best align with my church group’s passions and work to serve some need in the community? I love the two ideas above, but what other ideas could the groups at CHWUC come up with beyond these two? Do you have an idea you would like to share? Be brave – start something!

Step 24. Extend recruiting and advertising for church groups and events to audiences beyond your congregation. For example, recruit for choir members in a local paper or community list serve.

Great example! – we have a wonderful choir at this church with an amazing director and world class accompaniment. Have we advertised for new choir members beyond our walls? What other wonderful groups do we have happening here that we might want to invite others to outside of Sunday morning?

Step 25. Build relationships with those taking part in existing programs that serve the community, such as ESL classes, food pantry or clothes bank users, daycare families, etc.

We have a few things that run in this space that are not “church” activities. Have we engaged parents from the daycare or families from the guiding programs? Or what about the folks that come to our food bank? Have we intentionally engaged in conversation with those folks about how we might be in relationship with each other in new and mutually beneficial ways?

Lots to think about in these three short steps. Check out the next post that engages us in thinking about “Reach out through community events”. It is a much longer section and I think are really valuable steps to taking this kind of work to the next level!

Until then, get talking to each other about this stuff. If you’ve read this, share it with someone at church and get a conversation going.

Offered in the Peace of Christ,

Rev. Kim Curlett

Minister of Spiritual Care

I’m back in the office today at Cole Harbour Woodside United Church (CHWUC) after a beautiful, challenging, and Spirit-filled week at Regional Meetings in Sackville, NB. As we continue to work our way through 50 ways to connect our church with  the wider community, we turn to thinking about what it means to “Build Authentic Relationships”. These posts are inspired by the work of Robert Crossman, Ann A. Michel, Kim Mitchel, and Lovett H. Weems, Jr., as found in the article https://www.churchleadership.com/50-ways/50-ways-to-take-church-to-the-community/from the Lewis Centre for Christian Leadership.

This section of considerations builds on the previous 18 ideas, but here we begin to dig a little deeper and talk about more than just “us” as a congregation and “them” as the community beyond our walls. We begin to seriously consider what it means to think about an “us” as both these entities truly coming together. That’s the word “relationship” by definition – two or more things connecting, coming together in some way. So, let’s think about how we can build those connections in ways that are genuine and true. (The thought from the original article appears in blue, with my commentary underneath as it applies to us in our context at CHWUC).

Step 19. Strive for meaningful engagement with others, not superficial gestures.

If we truly seek to be in relationship with the community outside the walls of our physical structure it requires more of us than being simply familiar with one another. The difference is between being a friend and being an acquaintance. An acquaintance is someone who you recognize and might say “hello” to in the grocery store, for example, but a friend is someone who you would stop and engage in conversation! And why would we engage in conversation with a friend? Because we really care about them beyond the level of basic human respect – we deeply care for their well-being and they care for ours. We are interested in each other’s joys and sorrows and we connect at the level that allows us to be truly empathetic to each other’s needs.

Step 20. Make sure you are reaching out to people for the right reasons. If your motive is simply to get them to come to church, people will see right through to it.

I think this point speaks for itself, but let me reiterate what I stated in another post on this topic: “While new membership may be a wonderful side effect of being good disciples by loving God and loving our neighbour, our only goal ought to be to love unconditionally. Ask yourselves, “If we serve in our community and nobody new comes to church, would we feel we wasted our time?” If so, don’t bother. Return to the drawing board. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200! God doesn’t call you to fill the church pews. God calls you to love and serve others. Period.” I hold firm to this assertion. It is disingenuous to enter into a relationship with our neighbours if our goal is for them to join “us” as opposed to our goal being to simply be in a mutual relationship.

Step 21. Maintain appropriate boundaries, and respect all with whom you engage.

Ah, boundaries! The first thing that we must understand about boundaries are that they are not walls. Boundaries are not there to keep other people out or ourselves in but serve, in this case, to provide and protect our understanding and respect in relationship with one another. If we do not learn each other’s limits we only find out what they are when we trespass against them. Ideally, in healthy community relationships we do the work of learning what is acceptable behavior around communication, connection, space, marketing, professionalism, interpersonal dynamics and more. This takes patience, compromise, and time, but with dedication and respect for one another that transcends the need to be right, healthy boundaries will be established that help all of us navigate the challenging journey of relationships. Healthy boundaries = healthy relationships.

Step 22. Collaborate with others who are also passionate about the community. Don’t reinvent the wheel if you can partner with someone else serving the community.

This stems back to getting to know your community that we discussed a couple of weeks ago. We’ve just discussed that authentic relationships require a lot of work and time – all worth it, but still require a lot of energy, so the best use of our time and energy is to connect to those that we identify as having similar passions and goals in the community that we go. Who else is out there doing the work that we are passionate about too? How can we help them? Do they want our help? Social media is a great place to start asking these questions and see who is out there! Be brave, ask if you can get together and work together. They may not want our help or input, but we will never know until we ask. We might be surprised at the beautiful, unexpected relationships that develop when we take a chance and work with another group!

Stay tuned for next week when we discuss “turning our existing ministries outward”. Until then, get talking to each other about this stuff. If you’ve read this, share it with someone at church and get a conversation going.

Offered in the Peace of Christ,

Rev. Kim Curlett

Minister of Spiritual Care

I write to you today from the inaugural meeting of Regional Council 15 (Nova Scotia and Bermuda) of the United Church. We are meeting in Sackville, NB with our friends in the Region that includes New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island (who have a much longer regional name that I can’t currently remember and at the time of this writing I am not online). It’s an exciting time in the church and I am grateful to be here doing the work of the wider church and getting ready to be ordained here on Sunday.

So, now to the matter at hand. We are working our way through 50 ways to connect our church with community. These posts are inspired by the work of Robert Crossman, Ann A. Michel, Kim Mitchel, and Lovett H. Weems, Jr., as found in the article https://www.churchleadership.com/50-ways/50-ways-to-take-church-to-the-community/from the Lewis Centre for Christian Leadership. For more information on what we have been discussing please refer to my previous posts.

Today, we will expand on the first 13 ways that included ideas about embracing an expansive concept of community, how we ought to prepare ourselves spiritually before engaging in the work of connecting church and community, and getting to know the actual community surrounding our church. In the article where these FIVE ideas comes from this section was titled “Listen and Learn”.  As has been our practice. The original article’s point are in blue and it is the words of my reflection on those points that follow.

Step 14. Know that ministries that truly bless a community often arise out of conversations where you listen for the hopes and dreams of people in your community.

That means that we must know the people and be in relationshipwith themnot simply have knowledge that they exist. If we want folks to trust us enough to share those hopes and dreams we must allow ourselves to become a good neighbour and a friend. Currently, many of our congregations are living out the theory that “good fences make good neighbours” without recalling that it is not easy to love our neighbour, as we are commanded to do, through a fence or a wall. I would suggest that it is time to install a swinging door that allows us to go back and forth between each other as we build and nurture new relationships with those groups and individuals in our community.

Step 15. Interview residents of the community. Sit in a park, diner, or coffee house. Ask simply, “What are your challenges, hopes, longings and dreams?”

Also, on Facebook or other social media, but actually ask to talk to real live people. Group surveys are often only filled out by those who are already interested. Surveys are easier because then we don’t actually have to be bold and have conversations with folks that may not be completely interested in talking to us right away. This is NOT something that regularly happens, but it should. I wonder if you can imagine trying this? I challenge you to start this with your friends, family, and neighbours. Asking the question above is an invitation to conversation, and a conversation is an invitation into relationship. Shall we try it and see where it goes.

Step 16. Get to know the major public officials. They are people with tremendous influence. They need to know of your church’s commitment to the community.

This one is big because these are the folks with so much of the decision-making power in your area. Getting to know them might include inviting them to speak to you as the minister, or chair of a committee. Together you might find a way to help the community together. Having a good relationship between public officials and church will help both of you to meet these needs.

Step 17. Involve many people from your church in this work. Hold one another accountable to the tasks of engaging and learning from others.

Yes, yes, and yes! This is not just the work of a small task group. This is not just the work of the minister. This is not just the work of the outreach committee. This is not JUST the work of any of these group and individuals. This is the work of the WHOLE congregation. Each of the groups can help everyone do this work by doing some of the initial research so that they can educate others with both their knowledge and their experience. This work CANNOT be the work of one person and actually be effective.

Step 18. Discern clusters of issues and concerns that arise from these conversations. Ask what issues, suffering, injustices, or brokenness might you address.

Discern, disseminate, interpret, and all of the above is completely necessary to this work. The temptation will be to be reactive when we hear these stories, but we must commit to take the time to pray over the answers we receive to our question of, “What are your challenges, hopes, longings and dreams?” and let the Spirit guide us through a process of discerning where we are called next. In the medical field, we would call this triaging. Instead of sticking a bandage on every sore we see, we are called to take the time to have a conversation with those we seek to help. Like a triage nurse who takes the initial information to help the emergency room address those with the greatest needs first; the health care team that comes to ask those questions again; and those who go and walk to colleagues and then return to the patient about their treatment options – our work ought to be just as collaborative.

Stay tuned for next week’s post where we will discuss what it means to “Building Authentic Relationship”…

Offered in the Peace and Love of Christ,

~k

Kim Curlett (Next week I’ll be adding Rev. to that signature – God willing! Please keep me in your prayers on May 26, 2019 at 10 am)

Minister of Spiritual Care

We have been thinking about 50 ways to connect our church with community. These posts are inspired by the work of Robert Crossman, Ann A. Michel, Kim Mitchel, and Lovett H. Weems, Jr., as found in the article https://www.churchleadership.com/50-ways/50-ways-to-take-church-to-the-community/from the Lewis Centre for Christian Leadership. For more information on what we have been discussing please refer to my previous posts.

Last week we considered what it might look like to “Prepare Spiritually” for this work. Today, I want to unpack what it means to “Get to know the community surrounding our church”. The steps recommended in the article appear in blue and my comments appear under each: 

GET TO KNOW THE COMMUNITY SURROUNDING YOUR CHURCH

Step 10. Review demographic data from public, private, and denominational sources, but don’t assume that statistics alone will tell the whole story.

The most recent Joints Needs Assessment Report is a great place to start gathering this information about the community surrounding your church. This work has usually been gathered by folks so that information can be available to potential ministry personel that may be seeking a call. But, like this step suggest, don’t assume that is all the information. It is also really helpful to talk to people in the neighbourhood, which leads us to the next step…

Step 11. Get out in your neighborhood. Walk the streets. Map the area and record your observations. Note how the community is changing.

This would be a terrific exercise to do by a number of different groups in the church. In the United Church we are not door-knockers, but just because we aren’t going door-to-door doesn’t mean we shouldn’t walk around our community and say hello to our neighbours at business and parks etc. I challenge groups within the church to take an evening and go for a walk and/or a drive around while considering the question, “who is our neighbour?” I wonder what you would come up with. The beginning of a plan to connect with the community is actually knowing who they are!

Step 12. Assess community needs and assets. What are the needs of your context? Who are your neighbors, and how can you serve them?

This could be the next step in a comprehensive plan and it involves inviting community groups, neighbours, school reps, etc., into conversation with you. Assessing the community’s needs without their input in the conversation is not only ineffective, it is at the root of colonialism. If the church determines what a community needs without ever talking to the members of that community then they aren’t interested in real relationships with the community, they are interested in authority over it. We must be committed to doing the work of being in relationship. That means changing the approach from, “this is how we are going to help you,” to “how can we help you?” It is a subtle, but profound difference.

Step 13. Be attuned to where God is already at work in your community.

This might be the last step about learning about your community and it is so important. Just because your church is not involved in the community doesn’t mean God isn’t already working in it. God may not have been able to wait for the church to move into action and found other ways and other people to do God’s work. This is the work now – to look for individuals and groups in our community that could use our support and wider connections and resources to make their work of serving the community possible. What would it look like if we looked for ways we could help others rather than looking for others to help us?

Stay tuned for next week’s post where we will discuss what it means to “Listen and Learn”… Until then, act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly (Micah 6:8)

Offered in the Peace and Love of Christ,

~k

Kim Curlett

Minister of Spiritual Care