Becoming Community-Driven

This past Saturday, I did a breakout session at a local ministry training event called the Equip Conference on the topic of “Community-Driven Ministry”.  Below I shared the brief steps from my session to becoming Community-Driven:
(A few of the thoughts below are from a great training tool called ‘Compassion by Design‘)

1.  Identify Needs

• Step out of the church walls and get into your community:
  • Pay attention to what you hear people saying – take time to listen.
  • The most important thing this does is not to just identify needs, but helps you build relationships.
  • This takes time.  Don’t rush this.  Identifying needs and building relationships will not happen in one evening of walking the streets of your community.
• Most often, your distant assessment of a community’s needs, even if you’ve lived there a long time, will be very different then an unchurched resident’s assessment.
  • It’s difficult to see the needs in the marketplace when you’re sitting in the comfort of the church.
  • Engaging the community benefits you more than just identifying needs, but meeting the people you are trying to reach.
• Before you can be community-driven, you have to know what you’re driving towards.
  • What are the pressing needs in your community?
• How is this done?
  • Through informal community surveys.
  • Through conversations with community officials.
  • Through interactions and involvement in community projects.

2.  Involve Your Church

• This should not be done by just one leader or pastor.  For Community-Driven ministry to take hold in your church, it must be a value held by the whole church.
• It takes time for those in your church to come to value this – but the more they are out in the community, the more they will value ministry to the community.
• We can run this risk of mentally ‘dehumanizing’ the “lost”.  Your goal is to help your people personalize the need of the community.  Put faces to it…it’s not just ‘their problem’ – it’s our problem.
• Benefits for the church:
  • Helps build relationships in the community
  • Gives understanding to the potential need of adjusting ministry models
  • It drives home the vision of reaching a community to your people

3.  Impact Your Community

• Once you’ve identified the needs in your community and built relationships.  You need to pray and decide where your organizations’ “sweet spot” is:

• MOST SIGNIFICANT NEEDS:
  • Where are the most critical needs in the community?
  • What need groups are already present the congregation or team as either overcomers (those walking faithfully while they struggle with life-controlling challenges) or potential leaders?
  • Among which need groups do you sense a readiness for assistance?
• RESOURCES & GIFTS:
  • What resources has God provided?
  • What resources might be available in the community?
  • What are the unique gifts, talents and people that God has placed in the church or on your team?
• CALLING & PASSIONS:
  • What needs in the community fuel a God-authored sense of compassion?
  • What are the unique callings of the church/leadership team?
  • What is the history of compassionate service in your church?

Keys for success in community-driven ministry:

• God-inspired Passion
• Clear understanding of Needs
• A workable plan of action
• The right people to execute the plan