Engaging Your Community is the second of two

important resources for your church, district, or

conference.

We encourage you to also obtain Developing

an Intentional Discipleship System: A Guide for
Congregations available at annual conference
gatherings and at [Link].
(Developing an Intentional Discipleship System
has now been translated into Spanish, Korean,
and Finnish.)

Other supporting booklets for this initiative are:

(How to Start Small Groups: Growing Larger by Acting Smaller and

Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts are also available in Spanish.)
Engaging Your
Community:
A Guide to
Seeing All the
People
Junius B. Dotson
© 2018 by Discipleship Ministries

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated are from the New

Revised Standard Version of the Bible, The New Interpreter’s Study
Bible. Abingdon Press, 2003.

Scripture designated NCV is taken from The Holy Bible, New Century
Version. Copyright (add copyright symbol) 2005 by Thomas Nelson,
Inc.

If you would like to learn more about the resources of

Discipleship Ministries please visit us at [Link] and
[Link].

This resource is made possible by your generous support of The

World Service Fund of The United Methodist Church.

1908 Grand Avenue

Nashville, TN 37212
[Link]
877.899.2780
Contents
Introduction 4
See All the People 10
Work Avoidance vs. Work Engagement 18
Missional Engagement & Relationships 22
Equipping Disciples Who Lead 28
Equipping Disciples Who Engage 32
Start with Listening & Learning 38
Developing Strategies 46
Other Starting Places 54
Engagement across the Connection 60
For Further Study 70
4

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues,
and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease
and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them,
because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are
few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
– MATTHEW 9:35-38

Introduction
The harvest is still plentiful, and the laborers are still few. Today, not
unlike the time of Jesus, people still have deep spiritual needs and
long for greater meaning for their lives. Some, as in Matthew’s text,
feel harassed and helpless. Some are searching for good news. Some
need healing. Jesus still looks out over our cities and villages and has
compassion for all of the people ... and so should we as his disciples.

I remember the nursery rhyme taught to us in Sunday school when

we were young ...

Here's the church; here's the steeple,

open the doors and see all the people.

Unfortunately, many churches today might rewrite that rhyme,

“open the doors; where are all the people?” Although there are a few
examples of towns and cities where jobs and people have left entirely,
an overwhelming majority of cities and towns still report growth in
population year after year. The problem is not a lack of people. The
problem is our inability to see and reach them. We have forgotten why
as disciples we are called to reach out in the first place.
The problem
is not a lack
of people.
The problem
is our inability
to see and
reach them.
6

The Heart of a Movement

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book Citadelle he describes the process
of a group of people building a boat:

One will weave the canvas; another will fell a tree by the light of
his ax. Yet another will forge nails, and there will be others who
observe the stars to learn how to navigate. And yet all will be as
one. Building a boat isn’t about weaving canvas, forging nails, or
reading the sky. It’s about giving a shared taste for the sea, by
the light of which you will see nothing contradictory but rather a
community of love.

This quote has been paraphrased over the years in several different
ways. The one I like the most is this:

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men and women
to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach
them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

My grandmother described this yearning as having a burden for the

people. She passionately believed in Jesus until her death at ninety-
 7

nine years of age. She served in many positions of leadership inside

the church and never quit believing that the love of Christ could
transform lives and communities. A school teacher in the Houston
Independent School District, my grandmother served as my first
superintendent of Vacation Bible School when I was a child. Every
year she would fire the children up to share what we were learning
with our friends. She taught us to pray always for those who “were yet
to come.”

When we talk about engaging our communities, we must make sure

that our people find and embrace a vision rooted in a deep love for
all of God’s people—not unlike a love and yearning for a vast and
endless sea. Such a love pulls us forward, giving us the courage and
the willingness to go wherever God leads.

As John Wesley wrote in the 1743 tract, “The Character of a

Methodist”:

And while he thus always exercises his love to God, by praying

without ceasing, rejoicing evermore, and in everything giving
thanks, this commandment is written in his heart, “That he who
loveth God, love his brother also.” And he accordingly loves his
neighbor as himself; he loves every man in his own soul. His
heart is full of love to all mankind, to every child of “the Father
of the spirits of all flesh.” That man is not personally known to
him, is no bar to his love; no, nor that he is known to be such as
he approves not, that he repays hatred for his good-will. For he
“loves his enemies”; yea, and the enemies of God, “the evil and
the unthankful.” And if it be not in his power to “do good to them
that hate him,” yet he ceases not to pray for them, though they
continue to spurn his love, and still “despitefully use him and
persecute him.”

Do we have a heart for all God’s people—even the people not

personally known to us? even the people who reject God or reject us?
even our enemies?
8

Engaging our communities begins here.

For God
Planting churches or extending our church’s reach so loves
into our communities begins here. the world...
Transforming our communities and our world begins
and so
here. should we.
It begins with a deep and authentic love for every child of the God of
the spirits of all flesh.

For God so loves the world ... and so should we.

I hope you are picking up this book after having read and begun
to apply the teachings from Developing an Intentional Discipleship
System: A Guide for Congregations. Every intentional discipleship
system or pathway should include a long and prayerful discussion
about those in our community who are not yet here. Every church
should endeavor to create intentional spaces, which I refer to as
Big Front Porches (Developing an Intentional Discipleship System,
34), where the nonreligious and nominally religious, or even those
who have rejected the church, might find room to search and
explore spirituality and Christianity. Places where disciples, who are
themselves on journeys of spiritual growth and maturity, might be
present and aware of God’s prevenient grace moving in their lives and
the lives of others. Creating intentional discipleship systems ensures
that disciples continue to grow and mature, becoming more like Christ.
If this is happening in places of ministry, a genuine love for all God’s
people soon follows.

It is in this spirit that we offer a call to intentional discipleship, with

the desire to bring clarity to the church’s mission of making disciples,
offering healthy principles for intentional discipleship, and rekindling
passion for our mission. Such intentional discipleship will always move
us outside ourselves and into a desire and a vision for engaging our
communities in real, meaningful, and transformational ways. And
when we are faithful to follow where God leads, we will be transformed.
 9

I pray that churches will have a relentless focus on making disciples

and engaging their communities. As we operate and act in the
spirit of movement, a spark of passion and a burden to reach a new
generation of believers will spread across the connection.

I hope you will use this book with your leaders as a guide to
rediscovering a love for all God’s children and for learning some
practical ways that you can begin to love and engage your
community.

May your love for your community become as deep and wide as God’s
love for us. May it be just like discovering a love and yearning for a
vast and endless sea.

You are invited to join the movement as together we

... making disciples who transform the world.

Take a Moment
1. Read again Wesley’s “The Character of a Methodist” quote on
page 7: Are we called to love every child of the God of the spirits
of all flesh? What does that mean to you?

2. What are the barriers that keep us from a deep love for all people?

3. What are some first steps toward overcoming those barriers?

10

Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, “Blessed are the
eyes that see what you see!”
– LUKE 10:23

See All
the People
An award-winning 2002 Saturn commercial opens with a man jogging
backward out of his garage. He pauses at the foot of the driveway
as if making a three-point turn and runs forward down the street.
Deliberate but playful piano accompaniment begins, with scenes of
people lined up in pairs and alone at stoplights. Meanwhile, others
also in pairs and alone, simultaneously jog through
the intersection with the green light. One man
runs past a line of stationary people at a stoplight,
“When we
pauses slightly and runs around a corner. In design our
the following scene, people stand in spaces
deemed for parking. Next comes a dusk setting
cars, we
with humans carrying flashlights at their waists, don’t see
jogging toward the camera simulating headlights, sheet metal.
while others run away from the camera carrying
pairs of red lights, mimicking brake lights. A beat
We see the
later, a man stands on an expressway, facing people who
forward, as a police officer, several feet behind
him, writes a ticket. Next, people creep forward
may one day
in what resembles heavy traffic. They meet at a drive them.”
four-way stop, as one person waves another man
through. One man jogs with a gaggle of children plodding behind him,
simulating a school bus. With the camera view climbing, people move
along a spiraling highway interchange.
 11

At no point in the commercial has a single car or piece of metal

appeared—only people in the place of cars. Then an omnipotent
voice declares, “When we design our cars, we don’t see sheet metal.
We see the people who may one day drive them.”

This Saturn commercial rocks the advertising world. It earns the San
Francisco-based ad agency a prestigious Gold Lion Award at the
International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France. Considered one
of the ten best commercials of the last 25 years, it encapsulates an
ageless wisdom about how institutions need to view the people they
serve.
People aren't
People aren’t products, profits, or goals.
They aren’t simply the means to an end; they
products, profits,
represent the total focus in what we do. or goals. They
aren't simply
People are the means. People are the end.
People are the middle in all that we do. the means to
and end; they
Successful institutions understand that
people are not “the how,” as in how we
represent the
reach our goals, but they are “the why” of total focus in
our involvement in the first place. what we do.
To varying degrees, churches have moved away from this paradigm
and, in a noble attempt to save the church as an institution, have
lost sight of the very people we are called to reach. One unintended
consequence of the church growth movement of the past twenty-five
years is that people simply became numbers on a report. In too many
cases, strategic plans focused on filling the sanctuary with the goal of
becoming the next nationally known megachurch.

As membership and attendance have waned over the past four

decades, the response from an anxious church has been to try and
fix churches, to create the next new “can’t miss” program to spur
a new wave of growth, to sprinkle into worship services a dash of
contemporary culture, to create wider doorways to accommodate new
and returning disciples. But with few exceptions, worshipers have not
returned and churches have suffered as a consequence.
12

The Source of Our Anxiety

According to a 2015 article at [Link] by Kelly Shattuck,
fewer than 20 percent of Americans regularly attend church. By
2050, the percentage of the US population regularly attending
church will be almost half of what it was in 1990. Shattuck quotes
noted researcher Thom Rainer’s report that “the failure of churches
to keep up with the population growth is one of the church’s
greatest issues heading into the future.” Rainer states that only 6
percent of churches are growing—defining “growing” as not only
an increase in attendance but also increasing at a pace faster than
its community’s population growth rate. Stated inversely, 94 percent
of our churches are losing ground in the communities they serve.

A chronically anxious system tends to lose all perspective, resulting in

a “let’s just fix it” or “let’s try harder” mode of thinking and operating.
During these past four decades of decline we have busily tried to
reinvent the very idea of church, seeking a programmatic defibrillator
to shock life back into the heart of the church.

United Methodist church leaders considered its 82-page Towers

Watson Report (2010) a blueprint not only for church growth but also
for church rebirth. The report conducted church member surveys
and, based on the responses, calculated a “vitality index.” Report
authors believed that four “drivers” would create congregational
vitality: Small Groups and Programs, Lay Leadership, Worship
Services, and Pastoral Leadership. The report’s release triggered a
call to action.

Leaders across our denomination developed a plan to implement

these “drivers” of vitality. We created metrics for the number of
small groups in a given local church. We measured laity efficacy
by the numbers involved in specific programs. We tinkered with
worship services to ensure a mix of traditional and contemporary.
Pastors would exhibit good leadership by creating and managing a
welcoming environment. If the church implemented these drivers or
infrastructure, according to the report, people would fill the pews.
Growth did occur, but it was short-term and fell well short of hopes
and expectations.
 13

Stop Fixing Churches

The truth churches and leaders must embrace centers on the idea
that the report’s “drivers” served as indicators of health. They do not
create health; they merely reflect health. I believe vital congregations
are healthy not because they have discovered some secret sauce
but because they have never lost sight of the primary task of making
disciples.

We have to stop fixing churches.

We can't tinker our way to vitality.
There's no quick fix.
We didn't fall into these problems overnight, and we won't climb out
of them by tomorrow.

Churches have deep and complex problems that developed over

decades. They are our most conservative institutions and, as such,
they are the least likely to change to keep up with the constantly
changing society they serve.

The only way back to vitality comes through the deep and adaptive
work we seem to want to avoid—a concerted and intimate
reengagement of the communities we serve. We have to see all the
people God has called us to reach, and this becomes the foundation
of effective ministry.

When significant people in your life pull away from We have to

you, do you send a greeting card or do you visit in
person? Do you create a PowerPoint presentation stop fixing
with charts and graphs that make the case for churches.
their not pulling away, or do you hug them and
find ways to stay connected? The church has been
We can't
sending postcards and producing PowerPoint tinker our
presentations when we need to immerse ourselves way to vitality.
in the lives of the people who are right outside our
doors. We have to seek meaningful relationships in There's no
authentic, organic, and consistent ways. quick fix.
14

If sharing the love and grace of God with people becomes our “why,”
then relationships with those people becomes our “how.” We cannot
get to our “why” through surface and programmatic interaction.
The kind of intimacy required is more personal and ultimately more
effective but infinitely more difficult. It requires much more of us. It
is messy and complicated. It will frustrate those of us needing and
expecting fast results. This crucial work requires reservoirs of spiritual
stamina, which is probably why we have avoided it for so long.

The pressure and anxiety about attendance declines are real and
frightening to anyone interested in the sustainability of our institution.
The reflexive desire to start making church adjustments seems
logical. A slow hemorrhage of membership and attendance seems to
lend itself to simply caulking cracks in the foundation. However, this
hemorrhage has happened over decades. But all is not lost.

Countering long-term trends demands a long-term strategy—an

approach that involves much more than shortening services or adding
a soft-rock guitar to worship music. The prescription for progress
entails processes much more organic and authentic than flawless
programming: It involves something akin to entrepreneurial freedom
rather than denominational restraint, agility rather than staid and
institutional dependence. This path better aligns with The United
Methodist Church’s creed of passion over organizational neatness.

The Culture Is the Strategy

There comes a point at which institutions simply cannot be fixed
without a massive culture change. For churches, this means an
unyielding focus on making disciples who make disciples. Church
members invest most of their church time in the activities, events,
and programs that keep ministry going from week to week. However,
many leaders have lost sight of why these activities, events, and
programs exist in the first place. It happens in every church. It
happens when the business of doing ministry becomes the ministry.
It happens when our activities become more important than our
spiritual growth and development and become more valued than
engaging people in our everyday life experiences.
 15

Making sure our church culture becomes focused on discipleship

will help us return to our “why.” Our “why”—just like the Saturn
commercial—is people; our “why” involves making disciples of Jesus
Christ. A strong connection to our “why” adds more power and
impact to our activities, events, and programs. The opposite is also
true: When we focus only on activities, events, and programs, we lose
our focus on the goal of making disciples.

Discipleship Culture is the DNA of the congregation. In essence, it is

the intentional system of discipleship. The way a church connects to
people (building relationships), invites and welcomes them into the
faith community, teaches them about Jesus Christ and the message
of grace and salvation, invites them to pray and worship, sends them
into the community to engage in acts of compassion and justice, and
equips them to see and engage people in the community (back to
building relationships) defines the way it does discipleship.

If we are serious about changing the culture in our churches, we

need to get serious about discipleship. We need to get serious about
seeing and reaching people. Just as Saturn saw people instead of
sheet metal, we have to see through the pews and walls of the church
and focus on the people we are called to reach. And we cannot
reach people without first being in relationship. Discipleship begins
with relationship. We must grow the capacity of existing members to
16

develop and grow relationships with people who are currently outside
the church.

Imagine what it would look like to begin to see people who are not
currently a part of our church, the people outside our doors, the
people across the street and throughout our communities. What
would it look like if we focused on developing meaningful relationships
and bringing Jesus into the center of our lives in all that we do? This
can happen in our day. If we begin with discipleship, we can usher in
a new beginning. We see a similar example through Jesus, who did
not call a building his church but rather made Peter, a human being,
the foundation of the church. If Saturn can follow Christ’s example,
surely those who proclaim him as Lord and Savior can as well.

Take a Moment
1. With your leaders, name some of your anxieties as they relate to
your church.

2. How have you been trying to “fix” your church? Explain.

3. What would it look like to let intentional discipleship and

relationship building be at the center of all that you do?

4. How would you describe the current culture of your church or

ministry?

5. What needs to change in order to move toward a discipleship

culture?
If we are
serious about
changing the
culture in our
churches, we
need to get
serious about
discipleship.
18

The most important thing is that I complete my mission, the work that the Lord
Jesus gave me—to tell people the Good News about God’s grace.
– ACTS 20:24, NCV

Work Avoidance
vs. Work
Engagement
Work Avoidance
Each year across our denomination, we devote hundreds of hours
to meetings in order to maintain the institution. We spend countless
hours in local church meetings focusing on decision-making that,
if we are honest, have little impact on making disciples or engaging
our communities. The difficult truth is that we find it easier to spend
time in these contexts than to begin the hard work of engaging people
outside the walls of the church. During such meetings we often
feel good about winning a point and we go home believing we have
accomplished ministry. In reality we have only accomplished work
avoidance.

Work avoidance is the sum of the unproductive activities we engage in

that take the place of more important tasks before us. Work avoidance
tends to be technical, meaning we can complete the task and move
on. Completing these tasks can make us feel productive when we
really have done nothing to move us toward our mission of making
disciples. The result? Work avoidance can perpetually keep us from
our mission.
 19

It is similar to needing to have a serious conversation with someone

but choosing instead to make small talk and polite conversation—
avoiding the important conversation. And by avoiding the serious
conversation, the real issue only worsens.

In our ministries, work avoidance mirrors herself with conservative

vision.1 He (conservative vision) is always a safe and familiar choice.
She (work avoidance) stands pat and sticks with tradition. He bellows,
“We’ve always done it this way.” She adds cosmetic changes to
programming. He tinkers with musical styles in the worship service.

Work avoidance involves light editing and proofreading when a

complete rewrite is needed. Much of our outreach is an expression
of work avoidance. We create great outreach programs to help our
community, often with no intention of actually getting to know the
people we claim to help. I believe part of our missional responsibility
comes in delivering concrete, practical help to people. However, we
need not divorce this help from the task of building relationships and
making disciples.

Let me offer an example from one of the Work avoidance

churches where I served. Every year the
United Methodist Men conducted a
involves light
neighborhood cleanup. We sent out flyers editing and
about the church and the upcoming proofreading
cleanup. We partnered with the city to offer
heavy trash disposal, and on the day of the when a complete
event, we gathered in teams to remove rewrite is needed.
debris throughout the neighborhood. This
was a successful annual event demonstrating the church’s care for
the community and its environment. But one year we realized no one
had given thought to how we might meet and engage our neighbors in
meaningful conversations during this cleanup. We were missing an
opportunity to move from serving our community toward engaging our
community. We remedied this by creating a team who did not pick up

1
Conservative used here in the sense of a goal set purposely low for the sake of caution
(not in the political sense of the word)
20

trash. Their task was to knock on doors, meet the neighbors, and
spend time learning the stories of the people in our community. We
improved this event by adding an intentional relationship-building
component in order to connect with the people in our community.

Work Engagement
The opposite of work avoidance is WORK ENGAGEMENT. Making a
shift from avoidance to engagement, we choose to engage in deep
discipleship discussions with our congregations and our leadership.
We do this without seeking to assign blame to current or past leaders
as to why we haven’t been engaging our community. We spend more
time discussing efforts to engage people who are currently outside
the church—specifically, those who claim no religious affiliation or
consider the church to be irrelevant—as part of a larger intentional
discipleship system. We choose to engage in this difficult, complex,
and adaptive work rather than the interior decorating we often do that
passes as ministry today.

I believe these conversations can lead to new ways of imagining

ministry. We have been violating a major tenet of evangelism:

We cannot engage in discipleship without relationship.

Too often we are content with practicing arm’s length discipleship.

We reconcile the work of building our faith and actively engaging the
community to one singular being, just as Christ is reconciled with the
church. Let us be a people who once again engage with the mission
before us, aware of the constant temptation to avoid this important work.
 21

Take a Moment
1. Name at least three work avoidance topics that as leaders you
agree to stop talking about (or agree you will spend much less
time on).

2. How can we begin our work with the most important

conversations? What is a story of transformation or discipleship
with which you might begin your next leadership meeting?

3. How might we as leaders model the tenet of evangelism (we

cannot engage in discipleship without relationship)? How might it
start with the relationships around your leadership table? Name
a relationship that each leader might focus on beyond your
leadership table. Pray for each.
22

He [Jesus] left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through
Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground
that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus,
tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan
woman came to draw water...
[missionally engaged, relationship-driven conversation]
Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the
people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He
cannot be the Messiah, can he?”
– JOHN 4:3-7, 28-29

I use the word engagement in deliberate contrast to our traditional

understanding of outreach. Let me offer some distinctions. Outreach
has traditionally taken two forms: missional or evangelistic. Missional
outreach is usually characterized by helping ministries such as food
and clothing drives, neighborhood cleanups, feeding ministries,
and other types of hands-on missions. With this type of outreach,
churches discern a need in the community and design a program
to meet that need. These outreach programs provide tangible
help to the people they serve. Unfortunately, they can sometimes
be disconnected from the church’s discipleship system. Many
churches never make the effort to connect missional outreach with a
discipleship opportunity.
 23

Evangelistic outreach efforts are typically exemplified by efforts

to invite people to church, such as attending a street festival and
handing out invitations to church, passing out water bottles with the
church’s information on it, or wearing branded T-shirts at a public
community gathering. These endeavors raise the visibility of a local
church with the hope that people will give their church a try.

Engagement involves initiating and building Engagement

relationships. Engagement seeks to ensure that
outreach and evangelism efforts become a vital involves
part of an intentional system of discipleship. initiating
Again, we turn to our “why”: Discipleship begins
with relationship. The church does not undertake
and building
outreach to provide ministry for people but rather relationships.
to be in ministry and relationship with people.
Whether your church’s outreach is missional or evangelistic in nature,
its effectiveness depends upon its being intentionally designed with
engagement and relationship-building in mind.

Effective missional engagement that forms part of an intentional

system of discipleship has the following characteristics: it is authentic,
organic, and consistent in its approach to relationships. Let’s take a
look at each of these.

Authentic
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines authentic in this way: “of
undisputed origin; genuine.” Our engagement with people must be
genuine. It must start from the place of seeing all people as persons
created in the image of God. We must have a sincere desire to know
people and be committed to being in relationship with our neighbors,
even if they do not attend our church. The more authentic and honest
the encounter, the more effective we are in initiating a relationship
that has the capacity to grow. You have no doubt heard the well-
known truism: “People won’t care how much you know until they
know how much you care.” People want to be known, and they want
to know that we care.
24

Organic
As we engage with others and begin to build relationships, our
approach must be organic. Relationships cannot be forced. In the
world of community organizing, relationships are given time to take
shape and evolve in natural and organic ways. In the local church
context, we can provide opportunities to connect with our neighbors
in ways that build authentic community. When we commit ourselves
to connecting with our neighbors and getting to know them and their
stories, there will be natural openings to share our faith. Opportunities
to invite them to events or experiences will develop out of the life
experiences we share with one another. When we take time to get
to know people, invitations develop from our growing knowledge of
where they are in their life. These will come because we have fostered
life-giving relationships.

Consistent
Any healthy relationship requires a consistent investment of time.
Consistent interaction can include a phone call, a personal invitation
to a connection event, or a simple acknowledgment that they have
been prayed for by your church. It can be a knock on a neighbor’s
door just to check on him or her. Consistency in relationships takes
time, involvement, effort, energy; but it is worth it. In a world in which
so much is transactional, people appreciate those who offer love in
consistent, nontransactional ways. I am convinced that people in this
generation are attracted to Christ; they are not persuaded to Christ.
They are not argued into the kingdom, but they are drawn by the love
of God when we model and communicate in visibly consistent ways.

I See You
In my travels to Johannesburg, South Africa, I learned a greeting
called sawabona. It is a greeting used particularly in the northern
Natal tribes. It means “I see you” or “we see you.” The traditional
response is yebo, sawabona, which means, “Yes, I see you too.”
Seeing is a dialogue. It is an invitation to participate in another’s life.
 25

“I see you” means I acknowledge the dignity of your existence. This

underscores the belief that the person before you is created in the
image of God.

It was in the context of seeing the people that Jesus reminds us

through prayer of our call to be engaged in our community. The
biblical text at the heart of the #SeeAllThePeople movement is
Matthew 9:36-38. These verses describe Jesus as seeing the crowds
and having compassion for them. Jesus and the disciples witnessed
the exact same scene. The disciples saw a large crowd of people.
Jesus viewed them with different eyes. Our daily prayer should be that
we might see the people the way Jesus sees them.

Engagement includes a corporate and personal dimension of

discipleship. The corporate aspect includes everything a church
does to foster developing relationships and inviting persons into
discipleship opportunities. The personal dimension of discipleship
must be a integral part of a church’s ethos. This is the investment
of developing relationships over time. It will take the commitment of
ordinary grassroots believers, specifically our wonderful and gifted
laity, who are willing to be the presence of Christ in our neighorhoods
to make a discernible difference. It will take a change of culture.

When we see all the people with a desire to be in conversation, ready

first to listen deeply to their story, only then will we be in a position
to speak into their lives or invite them on a lifelong journey to follow
Christ.
26

Take a Moment
1. Name some outreach efforts from your place of ministry (think
missional and evangelistic). How might you make these more
engaging? How might you place at the center of each a desire to
build relationships?

2. In what ways might you update your outreach/evangelism ministries

to be a part of your larger intentional discipleship system or
pathway?

3. How might you begin to train disciples who serve in these ministries
to be more authentic, organic, and consistent as they build
relationships?

4. How can you help disciples become more aware of moments when
an invitation might be extended?
Engagement
seeks to ensure
that outreach
and evangelism
efforts become
a vital part of
an intentional
system of
discipleship.
28

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has
been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and
teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember,
I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
– MATTHEW 28:18-20

Equipping
Disciples
Who Lead
Discipleship Is Leadership
Leadership begins with leadership of oneself. How you lead yourself
shapes how you lead others. People lead as they experience
being led. The future of deeper discipleship lies in equipping and
empowering people to find leadership within themselves. This is what
made the early Christian movement spread so quickly in the time of
Jesus and what made the early Methodist movement so powerful and
effective. We need to equip people with the same spirit of servant
leadership. We must develop within disciples a capacity to evaluate
needs, pull together the right people, and mobilize to do the work.
As disciples we are called to be in leadership. As leaders, we are first
called to be disciples. Discipleship is leadership.

We must move away from the understanding that the pastor is the
paid leader in residence. In the early Methodist movement in the
United States, clergy on horseback went from town to town offering
the gathered Methodist societies Communion, baptism, and oversight/
 29

instruction concerning their discipleship and community engagement,

often referred to as spreading scriptural holiness and transformation
across the land. The itinerating pastor offered instruction and
encouragement to the lay leaders and then got back on his horse to
go to the next town, leaving the disciples to continue the work in their
context. Discipleship was the ongoing work of the people. Christian
leaders of today must inspire and equip the same discipleship-
based leadership in others. Leadership starts with and flows out of
discipleship.

This is an old idea. The Protestant Reformation established the

idea that individual disciples did not need an intermediary priest to
commune with God. The Reformation lifted up the biblical principle
of the “priesthood of all believers” (see 1 Peter 2:4-6), raising up
disciples who exercised leadership over their personal relationship
with God, toward a love and engagement with neighbor.

As I reflect on my time in ministry, often the most meaningful

moments were in one-on-ones with leaders; scheduled meetings
with team leaders at the end of the year to talk about their spiritual
growth. These moments of celebration served as poignant reminders
that leaders are to model what it means to be a lifelong disciple of
Jesus. I also used this time to talk about hoped-for accomplishments
in the coming year. The meeting concluded with a ministry map for
moving the ministry forward and, even more importantly, with a plan
to encourage the spiritual growth of team members.

Leaders who lead from this mindset will discover that when they
equip others to exercise leadership, discipleship growth will take
place exponentially, almost in the same way a sprinkler system has a
main water source but produces multiple sprinkler heads to expand
its reach—thereby watering more grass.

We must lead with the end in mind. The essence of leadership

is knowing the direction you desire to travel and being able to
influence the head, hands, and hearts of others to follow you there.
Our goal is to develop leaders for the movement. Leaders who help
others discover their pathway to healthy discipleship and grow their
30

commitment to Jesus unleash unlimited possibilities. I believe this is

one of the most effective ways to change the culture of a local church.
The result will be growing, healthy congregations filled with people
who take their relationship with Jesus seriously and are passionately
committed to inviting others to know Jesus in the same way.

Take a Moment
1. How can we better empower our disciples to lead?

2. How might you encourage your leaders in their spiritual growth?

3. What responsibilities must be reclaimed by the laity? And related

to this, what responsibilities must clergy relinquish to the laity?
What roles and responsibilities must clergy focus on? (This should
be a yearly conversation for your leadership with the purpose of
bringing clarity to roles and responsibilities, aligning them with the
mission of making disciples.)
The future
of deeper
discipleship lies
in equipping
and empowering
people to find
leadership within
themselves.
32

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him
in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to
them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord
of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am
sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag,
no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say,
‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace
will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same
house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to
be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town
and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are
there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”
– LUKE 10:1-9

Equipping
Disciples
Who Engage
Begin with Reflection
1. How did Jesus send the disciples into the villages? What
instructions did he offer?

2. Why “no purse, no bag, no sandals” and “eat what is set before
you”? What is the point?

3. What is it about such an encounter that enables the kingdom of

God to come near?
 33

How Do We Engage?
The above passage offers excellent insight into how we are to
engage our communities as disciples of Jesus. First, Jesus sends
the disciples out with nothing. In my opinion, the point of this is
vulnerability. Engaging others in ways that build relationships can only
be done when we become vulnerable and open to how God’s Spirit
and grace moves through these encounters. We also must realize
and be open to the fact that God might use others to be a blessing or
to speak into our lives, and may even meet our deepest needs. We
must not come with the idea that we are bringing something to them.
Second, we are to be consistent in our approach—“do not move from
house to house.” Spend time with the people that we encounter.
Another way we could say this is, be fully present.

A Lesson from the European

Refugee Crisis
In a video experiment conducted on May 17, 2016, Amnesty Poland,
set out to recreate psychologist Arthur Aron’s experiment from twenty
years prior. In this experiment Aron discovered that four minutes of
looking into the eyes of another human being without saying a word
would bring the two people closer. Amnesty Poland paired refugees
with Europeans to test Aron’s conclusion. This video attempted to
improve the treatment of refugees by Europeans, connecting them
with their common humanity.

Watch the video using this link:

[Link]

SUMMARY: Two people are led into a room; their eyes are closed.
They are seated in front of each other within arm’s length: one, a
refugee fleeing a war-torn country; one, a European in a country
struggling to respond to the refugee crisis. They open their eyes
having been instructed not to speak for four minutes, looking
directly at the other person for the duration. Some break the rules
immediately, saying, “I like your mustache.” “Are you new to Berlin?”
34

“How old are you?” The exercise appears awkward at first for some,
but for others it immediately creates smiles. Some cannot handle the
intensity and look away. Some begin to cry. At the end of the exercise,
all smile, some stand and embrace, some hold hands. Some make
plans to visit a local zoo together. Two children upon finishing the
experiment begin to play a game of tag.

Looking into another’s eyes drives us to a surprisingly deep

connection. In just four minutes—without words—friendships begin to
form. How is that possible? What is it about a simple encounter such
as this? Why does this experiment elicit such a powerful response—
with just the simple act of seeing another and being seen by another?

I believe Jesus understood this principle as he sent the disciples out

with instructions for vulnerability and consistency—to be fully present
in the moment, perhaps even beginning to see people the way Jesus
sees people.

At the conclusion of four minutes, in almost every instance, people

embrace as if they have known each other for decades. Why?
Something happens when we sit with one another without language,
looking into each other’s eyes without prejudice. What we see
and experience is the purity of another human being—the imago
dei (image of God). We might say that in the mystery of such an
encounter healing can occur. We might even say the kingdom of God
draws near or is revealed.

How might we rethink our approach to building relationships and

engaging others in light of Jesus’ instructions and by the example of
vulnerability seen in this video?
 35

Seeing Others: A Lesson from

NPR's Storycorps
“What can happen when you take the time to talk to a stranger?”

Listen to the story here:

[Link]/2017/11/03/561642158/an-unlikely-friendship-
reignites-2-artists-ambitions

SUMMARY: A thirty-one-year-old car designer named Brian Peterson

decided to talk to thirty-eight-year-old Matt Faris, a homeless man
whom Brian passed every day on his way to work. One day Brian
decided to say hello. He begins by apologizing for having passed
Matt and never having said hello. Matt recalls that Brian started the
first conversation by asking him lots of questions—questions most
people never asked of him, such as: What did he want to do with his
life? Brian recalls that something about Matt captured his heart, so he
asked if he could paint his portrait. In the encounter, a relationship
began that developed into a friendship. Brian closes the Storycorps
story by sharing the reason he finally stopped to speak to Matt:
“Everyone deserves to be seen with the eyes of love.”

I do not know the religious background of either

Brian or Matt (this story does not share those “Everyone
details), but what Brian shares at the end should deserves to be
be a fundamental belief of every follower of
Jesus. The belief that “everyone deserves to be seen with the
seen with the eyes of love” should be a driving eyes of love.”
factor that pushes us out of our comfort zones – Brian Peterson,
and into new and vulnerable relationships where NPR Storycorps
God’s presence might be felt and celebrated.

My prayer is that you will use these two examples to help your
disciples reflect on the ways in which they might engage other people,
while following the instructions of Jesus.
36

Take a Moment
1. How can we help disciples become more aware of and open to
God’s prevenient grace moving in our relationships?

2. How might we assist disciples in breaking down the prejudices

that often cloud our ability to see the people in our lives more
fully?

3. How can we embrace a daily attitude that everyone deserves to be

seen through the eyes of love ?

Our Daily Prayer as Disciples

God, help me to see the people that you place in my life each and
every day. Amen.
“Everyone
deserves to be
seen with the
eyes of love.”
– Brian Peterson, NPR Storycorps
38

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how
extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and
looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar
with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as
unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in
it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human
hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything,
since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one
ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the
times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would
live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find
him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and
move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we
too are his offspring.’”
– ACTS 17:22-28

Start with
Listening &
Learning
It seems that Paul, in every city that he entered, began by looking
carefully at the people and the religious practices. I believe Paul’s
amazing success throughout his ministry came in part due to his
ability to listen and learn and then to develop strategies; ways of
communicating that met people where they were in order to introduce
them to the good news of the gospel in practical and meaningful
ways. As Paul addresses the Athenians, he mentions practices they
value and connects them to his understandings of the unknown God
they have yet to experience. Paul speaks of a God they seem to be
 39

seeking based on all that Paul has observed. Paul reveals to them,
using the words of their own poets, a description of a God who is the
very foundation of our being. Deep listening and learning is the place
to start if we seek to speak meaningfully, connecting with the values,
hopes, and dreams of others.

Listening to the Unchurched

and Dechurched
Although there is no substitute for firsthand accounts and experiences
when it comes to listening to and learning from people in our
communities, some generalizations may help us as we try to see and
connect with those who are outside our churches. In Churchless,
George Barna and David Kinnaman drew data from a series of
eighteen nationwide surveys conducted with adults between 2008
and 2014. What I appreciate about Barna and Kinnaman’s research
is that it comes from the perspectives of those who have either never
been to church or who left the church for various reasons. These
are the perspectives we must be listening to if we truly seek to see
and connect with people outside of our churches. Here are a few
highlights that I find helpful for our missional engagement:

• Despite technology that connects, those outside the church

say they are becoming increasingly lonely and are looking for
relational connections.
• They have a growing concern about the future.
• Their stress in life is increasing.
• One in four has never experienced church.
• One in three consider themselves to be “spiritual.”
• Fifty-seven percent say faith is important to them.
• Fifty-six percent are single.
• Forty-six percent say family is a high priority.
• One in four self-identify as “skeptic,” “agnostic,” or “atheist.”
• Only fifteen percent see the lifestyles of Christians as being
noticeably more positive than the norm.
40

When asked about their values, the following are important to them:
• Doing good / good works
• Peace / unity (even in disagreement)
• Wholeness / health / healing
• Community / belonging
• Wisdom—practical advice that works in life
• Mentoring / help with growth as individuals

Does the gospel of Jesus Christ and the community Jesus called into
existence have anything to say, any meaningful way of relating, in
these areas? I believe we do.

Take a Moment
1. Which of these characteristics can you affirm in the people you
encounter in your community?

2. To what unchurched people might you reach out to to affirm or

challenge some of these statements?

3. Which of these speak to you? Which ones might inform your

community engagement?

4. Which of these surprised you about those outside the church?

If enough leaders around the table identify unchurched people in

their lives, consider inviting those unchurched people to be on a
panel for your church to learn more about their concerns in life. Keep
the questions open-ended and nonleading. Center the discussion on
learning from them, not preaching to them.
 41

MissionInsite
MissionInsite is a valuable tool available to all United Methodists
through your annual conference. MissionInsite is excellent for
learning about your community, understanding trends, plotting the
radius of reach based on current membership, and so much more.
Consider designating someone from your congregation to spend some
time on MissionInsite exploring your community. See Figure A for
more information about MissionInsite.

Prayer Walks
One tool that more disciples are using in order to get to know their
communities better is prayer walks. For our purposes, two types of
prayer walks can benefit church and community. In the first type an
individual or a group walks through the neighborhood in a spirit of
discernment. As the members walk, they pray for God’s vision for
the area. They pray for the people who reside in the neighborhood,
seeking to receive greater clarity about their ministry. The second
type offers a more hands-on approach. Church members gather
and receive a short informal training, are sent out to be vulnerable,
introduce themselves as neighbors, offer to pray for specific needs,
and collect prayer requests and contact information if persons desire
continued prayer.

Whatever variation of the prayer walk you try, keep it simple: Gather
a group of disciples together, pair up, and go out into the community
with the hope of trying to see the community with new eyes. After the
prayer walk, plan on meeting at a central location at a given time to
reflect on your experience. As you walk through your neighborhood,
pray that you might see what God wants you to see. Bring paper and
pencil to jot down street names or make notes about what you are
seeing. Take pictures along the way, particularly of anything that takes
you by surprise. (Take pictures of individuals only with permission.
Tell them the photos will only be shared in a limited way with a small
group seeking to learn more about the community—and will then be
deleted.)
42

Engage people in conversation if they seem open to it. Ask open-

ended questions about themselves and their view of the community.
How long have they lived here? How has the community changed over
that time? What do they love most about the community? What do
they like least? What could be improved? If they seem open, ask: Is
there anything we could be in prayer for you about? May we share this
prayer request with the people where we serve? With their permission,
jot down their name and address for future follow-up.

Learning from Local

Businesses
Another tool that gets people into their communities is the
“Demographics By Walking Around” survey, developed for TeamWorks
([Link]). Use the survey on the following page to
visit at least three businesses near the church. Ask each person to fill
out a survey for each place they visit. This survey will help you reflect
on what successful businesses are doing to engage their customers.

Confirming Research with

Intentional Conversations
What questions has your MissionInsite research, conversations with
local businesses, and prayer walks raised? Begin to plan intentional
conversations with community leaders to affirm or challenge your
findings. Or, plan more prayer walks with new sets of questions for
those people you encounter. If you had positive encounters during
your previous prayer walks, go back to those individuals with your
follow-up questions.

When combined, these four approaches will begin to help you paint
a picture of your community. Only after deep learning and listening
can we begin to brainstorm strategies for intentionally engaging our
communities and for equipping disciples for seeing all the people God
calls us to reach.
43
Figure A

10 Key PeopleView Systemtm Ministry Applications

1) Determine Best Ministry Opportunities – Discovery of Ministry Opportunities Using

MissionInsite’s PeopleView Systemtm Tools Built on Google Maps.

2) Answer Strategic Ministry Questions in Your Community – What Type of Households

Live in Your Ministry Area? Which Neighborhoods Are Growing? What is The Diversity in
Your Community? Does Your Church Membership and Mission Reflect Your
Community?

3) Understand Population Trends BEFORE They Happen with Always Current

Demographic Information from STI Pop Stats – Accepted as a Premier Demographic
Forecaster by Companies like Kroger and Walgreens. Information is Updated Twice Each
Year Including the 2010 Census, Current Year Estimates, 5 Year Projections and 10
Year Forecasts.

4) Make Informed Ministry Decisions Based on LOCAL Religious Preferences,

Practices, and Beliefs – MissionInsite’s Proprietary Quadrennium Project: An National
Survey of American Religious Preferences, Practices, and Beliefs. The Only Current
Religious Information at Neighborhood Level Available to Local Churches. NEW! 2017
MinistryInsite and ReligiousInsite Priorities Reports for local churches!

5) Identify and Reach Households in Your Ministry Area with MOSAIC USA Lifestyle
Segmentation by Experian – A Global Segmentation System Classifying More than 1
Billion People Worldwide in More than 30 Countries, Updated Annually. The 71 Distinct
MOSAIC Household Types Provide the Most Comprehensive Lifestyle Information Available
Today. Tom Bandy’s Mission Impact Guide Suggests Ministry Applications for Each
MOSAIC Household Type.

6) Target Specific Demographic Variables with Opportunity Scan – The Leading Tool for
Analyzing and Identifying Regional, Community and Neighborhood Ministry Potential –
Down to the Block Group Level (Approx. 1500 Persons). Create Maps and Data Tables with
Top Ministry Target Areas for Your Church or Regional Agency.

7) Analyze Ministry Opportunities with PeoplePlot – A Secure System for Local Churches
to View and Identify Church Members and Visitors on a Map. Compare Church Households
to Neighborhood Households Using the Proprietary ComparativeInsite Report which
includes the Estimated Financial Support Potential for Congregations. Employ
Analytical Tools For Development of Small Group Ministry, Mission Locations and Satellite
Ministries.

8) Create Neighborhood Thematic Maps – Create and Print Custom Neighborhood Maps
from More Than 76 Demographic Variables to Visually Display Mission Reality.

9) Create Customizable Reports – Choose Only the Information You Want: Ultimate
Flexibility in Selecting Strategic Report Variables for Specific Ministry Applications.

10) Accomplish Essential Tasks in Seconds with NEW USER ASSISTANTS – Easy Access
to Plotting People, Generating Reports & Theme Maps, Opportunity Scan, Create & Export
Maps, Neighbor Center and the Purchase of Address Lists with our new User Assistants.
Designed for new and returning users as a simplified means to complete essential
PeopleView Systemtm tasks without additional training.

(Used with permission by MissionInsite)

 45

Take a Moment
1. List everything you currently know about your community—leave
nothing out—capture as much as your leadership team can think
of or recall. Describe the people, types of employment, general
wants, needs, struggles ... and so on.

2. Make a list of questions to research further. What are you certain

of? What needs testing? What are you clueless about?

3. List existing community events that tell you about your community.
What community values do these events represent?

4. What are the learnings from your MissionInsite research?

5. What are the highlights from your prayer walks? What surprised
you? What made your heart break?
46

So they [some Athenian philosophers] took him [Paul] and brought him to the
Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you
are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what
it means.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend
their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.
– ACTS 17:19-21

Developing
Strategies
As Paul listened and learned about the Athenian community, he
noted an important piece of information: They would “spend their
time in nothing but telling or hearing something new”—a significant
characteristic worth noting, a value of the community. And thus Paul
began to think about ways that he could meet them where they were
and perhaps offer “something new” from the gospel of Jesus.

Listening to the Unchurched

and Dechurched
Let us turn once again to Churchless by George Barna and David
Kinnaman and lift up some highlights:

WHAT DOESN’T WORK

Those who participated in the survey noted the following strategies
either had no effect or had a negative effect:

• Impersonal media / direct mail

• Advertising / billboards
• Treating skeptics like they have a spiritual void (described as
“offensive”)
 47

• Attempts to “defend” the faith was deemed not interesting

• Language use and motivation of the group often pushed them
away

An important note from this research: According to the unchurched

and dechurched, a relational approach does not work unless it
involves lots of listening.1

Take a Moment

1. How have we sometimes focused on defending the good news

of the gospel of Jesus Christ instead of sharing it? Do you find
yourself defending or sharing more often? Why do you think this
would matter from the perspective of someone who is outside of
the church?

2. What part do you think language and motivation play in

communicating with those who are unchurched? Why does this
matter?

WHAT WORKS
Some strategies will prove more effective than others. Continuing
from Churchless, here are some highlights from the perspective of the
unchurched or dechurched:

• Public events / concerts / music (10% positive)

• Opportunities helping the needy in their community / loving the
poor (12% positive)
• Connecting meaningfully with older adults (14% positive)
• House churches / small groups (16% liked)

These generalizations offer important input as we begin to brainstorm

strategies.

1
Churchless, 151–52.
48

Take a Moment

1. Which of these strategies does your church already employ?

2. Which of these have you talked about trying?

3. How might you combine some of these to create a strong event to

build relationships with those in your community?

Developing Strategies through

Brainstorming
Now take some time to develop strategies for your context. Follow
these instructions and guiding questions to generate your list.

1. List the talents and resources that already exist in your church.

2. List any and all strategies you can think of to engage your
community (no idea is silly—list them all!)

3. Are there existing community events that your church could

support?

4. In what ways can the church engage more intentionally with

existing events / strategies?

5. How can you equip and empower your disciples for better
community engagement during events? What training is needed?

Putting It All Together:

An Example of a "Restart"
When I served at Saint Mark UMC in Wichita we joined forces with
Epworth UMC and began to share the relationship-based strategies
that had served as the foundation of our community engagement.
We focused first on seeing and intentionally connecting with all
the people in our community, which resulted in new life for a dying
 49

church. These strategies began to build critical mass for restarting

the Epworth congregation—always centered on people and
relationships—and later led to launching a new worship experience.

Epworth, founded during World War II, was once considered a

prominent Methodist church in the Wichita urban area. Epworth had
more than one thousand members in its heyday. Like many churches
across the denomination, the church went into rapid decline as its
once predominantly white neighborhood became more diverse. The
church had to decide whether to close its doors when it ran out of
money or to maximize its resources to ensure a Methodist missional
presence in the southeast community of Wichita.

Epworth chose to maintain its ministry and legacy in the Wichita

community rather than abandon its neighborhood. The leadership
at Epworth asked for Saint Mark’s help by entering into an “Elijah/
Elisha” church model merger. Saint Mark would share knowledge,
encouragement, and experiences about how to engage a multi-ethnic,
multigenerational neighborhood. For a truly fresh start and a full
embrace of new approach to ministry, the leadership of Epworth UMC
voted to transfer operational control of their ministries and assets to
Saint Mark.

This arrangement offered several benefits for both churches:

• Opportunities to reach and disciple more people for Jesus Christ

• Leadership opportunities for more people at Saint Mark and
Epworth
• A new and refreshed sense of vitality and vision for both ministries
• Opportunities to enhance and expand mission in the local
community
• Increased utilization of gifts, talents, skills, and creativity of
existing members
• Increased community awareness of The United Methodist Church

The two churches put together a team of sixteen persons to

relaunch the Epworth ministry location to become a multi-ethnic,
50

multigenerational, biblically centered, outwardly focused congregation

to make disciples for Jesus Christ and transform the community. One-
third Saint Mark members, one-third Epworth members, and one-
third of people who were new to Saint Mark or Epworth made up the
team. The team make-up ensured the presence of Saint Mark DNA,
honored Epworth’s legacy, and valued the new and fresh ideas offered
by people with little history with either congregation.

Team members understood this assignment as short-term. This

allowed them to work with a greater level of intensity with a clear
goal in sight: a public relaunch of the Epworth ministry. They began
with one central question, “How do we reach people in the southeast
Wichita community?” Their task involved planning opportunities
for the southeast Wichita community to experience and learn more
about Saint Mark, to start and foster relationships with unconnected
people in the area, and to develop those relationships by listening
and building trust. They hoped in that way to gain a positive response
from the community to a specific invitation to the public relaunch.

The team had about six months to accomplish its work. They began
by learning and listening. The demographics of the local community
provided great insight about the makeup of the neighborhood.
Meeting with local business owners, school principals, city council
representatives, and the neighborhood association gave the team real-
time information that made the demographic information come to life.

The team discovered the hopes and dreams of people in the

neighborhood. They learned that people in the area yearned for
deeper connections. They realized that local churches in the area
had not reached out in meaningful relational ways in response to
the neighborhood’s change over the previous ten years, and many
churches had closed, sold their buildings, and moved on.

This group of newly informed, highly motivated people was now ready
to engage the community. With a fresh burden for the people they
were called to reach, they settled on four engagement opportunities
designed to connect with their neighbors.
 51

Prayer Walk
The first involved a prayer walk through the neighborhood. The
team, along with members of Saint Mark and Epworth gathered on
a Saturday morning and received a short training based on Luke
10:1-17. Their instructions: be vulnerable, introduce themselves
as neighbors, offer to pray for any specific need, and collect prayer
requests and contact information if persons desired continued prayer.
Instead of inviting people to church, they invited them to attend a
community block party for the purpose of meeting their neighbors.

People dressed in branded church T-shirts went out in groups of

three to five. People who could not walk stayed in the sanctuary and
prayed for those who went on the prayer walk. The walk concluded
with a lunch, and people shared stories about their morning
experiences. The stories shared were moving, and participants
discovered that the people in that community had a real desire for
authenticity as they met new friends. Many of the persons who went
out to visit were pleasantly surprised that their fear of rejection and
possibly having doors closed in their faces never happened. In fact,
most of the people they visited in the neighborhood were happy that
their neighbors took the time to introduce themselves.

Community Block Party

The second engagement opportunity was a community block party.
The Epworth church held an annual fall yard sale for many years.
The team decided to take this traditional event and transform it into a
major community gathering. Instead of selling items to the neighbors,
they chose to emphasize building relationships. The atmosphere
was festive. Signs adorned the church yard inviting people to come
meet their neighbors. Children’s activities included a bounce house,
face painting, and so on. The church provided free hot dogs and
hamburgers. A local DJ played music. Youth played old-fashioned
schoolyard games. People played board games. Church members
staffed tents in the parking lot to highlight key ministry opportunities.
Guests were invited to register and receive free giveaways donated by
local businesses in the community. The registration card gave people
52

opportunities to stay connected with this new ministry. It also offered

them a chance to volunteer to help plan other activities for their
neighborhood.

The most important principle in planning the community block party

was the emphasis on developing relationships. Often churches plan
events, and members spend all their time serving and talking only to
one another. In order to avoid this common pitfall, the team assigned
a group of people whose only responsibility at this gathering was to
meet people and listen to their stories.

Free Gas Giveaway

The third event connected our traditional understanding of outreach
with engagement. The team established a budget amount they could
allocate for this event. Based on the budget amount, the church
offered practical help in the form of twenty dollars worth of free gas
per vehicle. The church partnered with a local gas station and a local
radio station. The gas station provided two free-drink coupons for
every vehicle. The radio station ran a free ad for the event. The team
met with the police department who offered assistance with traffic on
the morning of the gas giveaway.

The launch team and other volunteers gathered on a Saturday

morning for the actual event. Cars snaked through the neighborhood
to receive free gas. While people waited in lines, team members
went from car to car introducing themselves and thanking people
for coming. They connected with people as they asked how they
found out about the giveaway. They recognized some from the prayer
walk and the community block party. When folks pulled up to the
gas pump, one team member pumped gas and another shared
information about the public relaunch of the church. Again, the
launch team emphasized building relationships with their neighbors.
 53

Open House
An open house provided the final engagement opportunity. The
church invited many nonprofit executives who shared a similar
mission: the chamber of commerce, key city officials, and board
members from a few major helping agencies such as the Wichita
Food Bank. The open house took place on a weekday in the late
afternoon. The team billed the event as a mixer and an opportunity to
network with persons who shared the same passion for transforming
the community. Nearly one hundred people showed up! The open
house featured live music and refreshments. Team members shared
with those in attendance the vision for relaunch along with a simple
invitation: “We want you to know that this facility is available for your
use. We want to be good neighbors. If you have an idea for a way for
us to partner in making this a better community, we would welcome a
conversation.” The simple words created space for others to dream.
The results were astonishing. Two major ministries of the church
emerged from that gathering, both birthed with the energy and the
financing of partners in the community.

All these events led to a successful relaunch of the Epworth Church

(now known as Saint Mark Southeast) and ensured a missional
presence in the community for years to come. Engaging with the
community is no longer an afterthought, it is the continued focus of
this newly created ministry.

Take a Moment
1. What will your first steps be?

2. How will you train your disciples for engagement?

3. How will you follow up with participants?

4. How will you unpack and learn from the event?

5. How will you use the stories to encourage future engagement?

54

Other Starting
Places
Engagement in Local Schools
Teachers and staff at a particular high school gathered together prior
to the start of the academic year. As they hugged hello and chatted
about the brevity of the summer, they noticed the enormous wall in
front of the meeting room. Small square pieces of paper covered the
wall. Each piece of paper had the name of a student in the school.
A district administrator asked the teachers and staff to peruse the
list and place a check mark next to the names of all the students
they knew or had spoken to in the previous year. They jockeyed for
position in front of the wall, marker tips exposed and checked the
names of the kids they knew. Then they stepped back. As they stared
at all the names on the wall, a mosaic of those names without check
marks formed.

“These are the kids who really need us,” the

administrator said plainly. “These are the kids who are “These are
about to slip through the cracks.” Schools lose students,
she said, to a raft of issues, from poverty to gangs, from
the kids
peer pressure to pregnancy. The common denominator who really
in each loss, she said, was a kind of invisibility or need us.”
anonymity at school for that student.

Through this process, teachers and administrators realized there were

some children in the school that virtually no adult had talked to. No
coach recruited them for the wrestling or volleyball team. No English
teacher encouraged them to spice up their writing with adverbs.
No math teacher imparted to them the mysteries of exponents. No
sponsor hosted them at after-school chess or Latin club meetings.
“Often,” the administrator continued, “simply having a connection
was enough to save a student.” Many of these students manage to
 55

hang on; but just as many with no connections begin to believe what
their daily school routines reinforce—no one knows or cares that
they are alive. Schools lose them to a bundle of negativity, a lack of
meaningful relationships.

This process generated a somber resolve in the teachers and staff

as they continued to stare at the names with no marks. The teachers
thought about the students who in the past may have slipped through
their grasp. They left the school that day determined never to let that
happen to another child.

School districts nationwide have tackled this isolation issue. The

Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program began
in many districts as a way of focusing on overlooked students in the
often forgotten middle: the B and C students who received neither
the heavenly attention of the honor students nor the anguish-filled
attention of failing and misbehaving pupils. Educators recognized that
with more attention and connection, students who found themselves
in the middle could become high achievers. But first, the educators
had to see those students. All of them.

Where connection is key, actually seeing the people you want to serve
comes first.

Many churches provide excellent outreach to local schools. Programs

like backpacks for kids and school supply drives are ways to begin a
relationship with schools in your community. However, the key comes
in moving beyond a program to a sustained effort to develop and build
relationships with students and teachers. How will you demonstrate
that you see them and you care for them?
56

Discipleship & Social Justice:

Toward Real Transformation
But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile,
and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your
welfare.
—Jeremiah 29:7

When my bishop appointed me to start a new church, it didn’t have

a name. I will never forget how I felt hearing Bishop Melvin Talbert
read the appointments that year at the California-Nevada Annual
Conference: Junius Dotson—city of San Jose, California. He appointed
me to the whole city! What a helpful way of seeing our ministry. We
have a prophetic call to seek the well-being of the whole city. We
make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Transformation begins in the local community. Our engagement in the
local community creates a climate where growing disciples can wrestle
with how to make the Word become flesh in their local context.

The most effective training I received in starting a new congregation

came in community organizing. Community organizing focuses on
building relationships, bringing people together, and then leveraging
those relationships to make progress on issues of concern.

When local churches deeply engage with their community, significant

moments will occur that require spiritual leaders to act. Effective
and meaningful witness is possible when we have done the work
of developing and cultivating relationships. In moments of crisis or
tension, people trust the leaders with whom they are in relationship.
They seek out churches who have demonstrated a pattern of caring
and connecting in love with those around them.

Shortly before leaving Wichita to become the General Secretary of

Discipleship Ministries, I helped organize a citywide forum in an effort
to prevent a violent response to explicit police violence in Wichita
and the surrounding communities. Dr. Kevass Harding of Dellrose
 57

United Methodist Church and I watched the crowds and tensions in

Ferguson, Missouri, gather and explode in response to the August
2014 shooting death of Michael Brown, an eighteen-year-old African
American teenager, shot by Darren Wilson, a twenty-six-year-old
Ferguson policeman. We did not want that to happen in Wichita,
which has a mixed history in the area of race relations.

Wichita has produced social change agents like Donald Hollowell,

an African American civil rights lawyer, who on multiple occasions
helped free civil rights icons such as Julian Bond, John Lewis, and
the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. from incarceration. Hollowell was
so revered that residents in King’s hometown of Atlanta called him
Mr. Civil Rights. He gave Washington lawyer and power broker Vernon
Jordan his first job. Wichita also produced Hattie McDaniel, the first
African American to win an Oscar. The youth group of the Wichita
branch of the NAACP launched the first successful student-led sit-in
in the nation in 1958, almost two years before the more famous sit-in
of Greensboro, North Carolina. And though Wichita had a huge Ku
Klux Klan presence, a celebrated baseball game between the Negro
League baseball team and the Monrovians took place in an attempt to
find common ground in the area of sports.

However, Wichita also was the first city outside of the South to be
federally investigated for housing discrimination. The city finally
decided to desegregate its public schools in 1972, some eighteen
years after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education desegregation
decision, and it did so after considering forgoing the federal funds tied
to integration.

So, as Dr. Harding and I pondered how best to make progress on

police/community relations in Wichita, while factoring in the noble
and not-so-noble racial history of the Midwest city, we found ourselves
questioning systems, processes, and infrastructure.

THE PLAN FOR ENGAGEMENT

Dr. Harding and I put together a team to plan a citywide event to
address the issue. The credibility we brought to the table was forged
by years of engaging our community. We had developed authentic,
58

organic, and consistent relationships with leaders and community

members that set the stage for an effective gathering. Only the
foundation of engagement allowed us to pull this off. Years of
attending city council meetings, community celebrations, ministerial
league meetings, and neighborhood association gatherings provided
a level of trust from city and community leaders. We assembled a
“premeeting” with the mayor, interim police chief, superintendent of
schools, pastors, our bishop, and other key leaders. Together we laid
out the plan for the citywide gathering.

The citywide gathering filled a high school auditorium and drew

heavy media coverage as well as participation from city government
and law enforcement. When the temperature at this event got heated
as people spoke out in frustration, we could calm the waters as we
addressed people by name. More importantly, we knew their stories
and this changed the nature of the public interaction. At this event,
we and other concerned citizens witnessed firsthand what happens
when churches engage in the community. Community engagement
earns churches the credibility, trust, and influence to bring people
together to make progress on complex issues.

What does this mean? We achieved our primary objective of avoiding

clashes between police and the community. In follow-up meetings
with a small group, city officials agreed to equip officers with body
cameras. They also agreed to train officers in mental health issues
and include new curriculum that addressed racial bias in policing.

AN UNEXPECTED RESULT
This experience afforded Dr. Harding and me an opportunity to work
directly with millennial leaders unconnected to any church. Prior to
this community engagement, they perceived the church as irrelevant,
playing little role in restoring community trust. Our efforts did not go
unnoticed. Less than a year later, the new police chief partnered with
community and church leaders to plan a community BBQ outing to
continue building and growing relationships.

Now, many who were outside the church regularly foster dialogue
and community with growing disciples who decided to engage
 59

their community. The story is still being written, but I believe these
encounters can be the first awareness of God’s prevenient grace
working in their lives, a first introduction to Jesus, and an introduction
to a church that is relevant to their lives and to the well-being of their
communities.

Take a Moment
1. Does your church currently work with a local school? How might
this work become more engaging, more about relationship-
building, more about seeing all the children and teachers in your
community?

2. Does your church have a history of working in the community

tackling societal or systemic problems? How do our journeys
as disciples and our love for all people lead us to seek real
transformation for our communities and our schools?

3. If your church has never attempted such engagement, what are

some first steps?
60

Engagement
across the
Connection
Discipleship Ministries has been gathering examples of community
engagement from around the connection. A few are shared below. To
share your stories, we invite you to visit [Link].

Germany
TENT MISSION
The Tent Mission of the Germany United Methodist Conference serves
all UM churches in Europe. We provide tools and resources to aid
local churches with their mission in and to their communities. We
have eleven modern fully equipped tents ranging in size from fifty to
six hundred in seating. The tents can be used for traditional mission
evenings but can also be used for culinary events, youth events,
game nights, music festivals, etc. We also have a mission bus that
is a mobile street cafe. Along with the mobile stage unit, the bus is
a useful tool for outreach and events in the marketplace / outside
the church walls. Other resources include an inflatable church,
inflatable climbing wall, and human foosball table. Along with these
resources we provide training in how to use them effectively. We
encourage local churches to see these resources as a means to bless
their neighborhood with fun days, family days, church festivals, and
community days. In the training we encourage church leaders to use
these resources to spend time with and get to know their neighbors
better.

INSPIRE CHEMNITZ
INSPIRE is a Fresh Expressions ministry of the Germany Conference
and has been up and running on the Brühl in Chemnitz for over two
 61

years. It has been an amazing adventure, with loads of experimenting,

and new doors of opportunities to serve continually being opened to
us. Below are some of the regular happenings at INSPIRE:

Bring & Share Brunch

On the first Sunday morning of the month we have a special
neighborhood brunch. The INSPIRE team makes tea and coffee and
provides some basics like bread, butter, honey, etc. Everyone from
the community is invited to attend and bring something to share. All
the food offerings are placed on a large community table, and we all
sit down and have brunch together. There is always enough to eat
for everyone—even for those who could not contribute. The Bring &
Share Brunch is a great way to get to know your neighbors and build
community.

Music Mondays
On Monday evenings INSPIRE changes into a singer/songwriter music
bar. It started with a small group of musicians jamming together but
has developed and grown into one of the top music venues in the
city. At the start, we had mostly young newcomers from the region.
We have also hosted inspiring musicians and artists from the UK, US,
Australia, and Canada. The space is often packed with guests ... on a
Monday night! (Just think about that for a moment!)

Refugee Ministries
Two years ago, when more than a million refugees arrived in Germany,
we started a “One World” welcome cafe for refugees who had arrived
in the city. We served coffee and cake and helped them to learn
German. We recently added a weekly homework club for the children,
helping them to adapt to German school life. This is a vital ministry,
investing in young lives, hopefully enabling a better future for them.

INSPIRE Kids
This is a joint venture with the Bethanien Diakonissenstiftung, a
foundation of the United Methodist Church in Germany. In the
backyard of INSPIRE we have a former circus wagon. Keren Cascione,
a social worker employed by Bethanien and supported by a team of
volunteers, runs a children’s program every afternoon. This is another
62

significant ministry that impacts the lives of children, many of whom

face huge challenges in life.

Whisky & Wine Tastings

Our whisky and wine tasting events are an INSPIRE classic; tickets for
these events often sell out! These evenings are not only an opportunity
to learn the finer details about wines and whiskeys of the world from
experts, but the event is also a great foundation for conversation,
building relationships, and deepening friendships. Some of our most
faithful INSPIRE coworkers came to us initially through our “tasting”
events!

International Student Group (ISG)

We believe God opens doors for us to serve people and make the world
a better place. The ISG is the latest example of this. Jay, a musician
in a punk band that performed at INSPIRE, is a teacher in his day
job. He saw INSPIRE as the perfect location for a “language pub” for
foreign students to practice speaking German. We agreed. And so we
started with twenty of Jay’s students from Syria, China, United Arab
Emirates, and other countries. With the help of small question cards,
we discuss topics like “Five things I need to be happy.” We have
learned from the Syrian participants to always appreciate family. One
of them summed it up like this, “What I really only need, is my mother
…,” sharing with us that each day he Skypes with her in Damascus.

A Closing Note about INSPIRE

Some of our church friends reading this may be wondering: Where the
“spiritual” activities in INSPIRE happen. When do we preach? Is there
no worship? The cheeky answer might be, “Yes. All the time!” We are
very clear at INSPIRE about who we are and what we are about. We
are a community of faith, hope, and love. Our vision is to see our Brühl
neighborhood “inspired,” with new life breathed into it (yes, even in a
holistic sense). Our core team are all practicing Christians, but we also
have many good friends and coworkers supporting our project who are
of no faith or of different faiths. We all want to make this world a better
place. This makes us very happy!
 63

Our INSPIRE team meets every Thursday morning at 7:15 am

to pray for and bless the neighborhood. As a team we also meet
once a month in our homes to read the Bible and reflect on what it
means for us to be followers of Christ today. Anyone is free to join
us during these times. At Easter and Christmas we have special
teaching initiatives and events at INSPIRE that delve deeper into the
Christian faith. As a team we strive, in spite of our human failings and
weaknesses, to live out our faith, showing our friends and neighbors
what it means to be a Christian today. We take it as a compliment that
we are known affectionately on the Brühl as “The Christians.” We are
no longer surprised by the regular interest and questions that people
often have for us, concerning our Christian faith.

Thank you and God bless you!

Barry Sloan & the INSPIRE Team

Rev. Dr. Barry Sloan

Director of Evangelism, UMC Germany
64

Philippines
KNOX UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Knox United Methodist Church’s Loading Ministry is the church’s
outreach ministry to the street dwellers (homeless) of Manila, using
the following strategies:

“Come and Eat!”

Church workers and lay members sought the street dwellers in the
places they frequented and invited them to have free snacks every
Tuesday afternoon. A table was set outside the church gate and warm
porridge was served. A cupcake was added to their snack every third
Tuesday. The offer for free snacks did not come with any condition for
the street dwellers to participate in Knox UMC’s church activities.

Eventually, full meals consisting of rice with viand and juice replaced
the snacks after six months when they became active participants in
a new worship service made for them.

“Have a refreshing bath!”

Personal hygiene was critical to the street dwellers. They used the
restrooms in gasoline stations or paid P5.00 – P20.00 to use the
showers or toilets in public markets. The streets would always be
available if the first two options were unavailable. Knox UMC offered
an area inside the church compound where they can bathe. Toiletries
and towels were provided to them.

“We have some clothing our members would like you to have.”
The church realized that the street dwellers needed a change of
clothes after their bath. The offer of clothing made them aware that
more church members were concerned about them.

“Would you like us to pray for you?”

Three months after the Loading Ministry’s inception, the pastors
invited the street dwellers interested to be prayed over inside the
church. Those who accepted the invitation were brought to the altar
where they were prayed over and anointed with oil by the pastors.
 65

“A worship service like no other!”

Knox UMC developed a worship service that was sensitive to the
diverse background of the street dwellers. The Word and its preaching
were significant to their spiritual formation, but the overall service
had to give off an atmosphere of fun. The Word was shared in a
storytelling mode. Games, testimonies, group dynamics, health tips,
Bible drills, teaching hymns and praise songs through the use of
videoke were incorporated. A choir was formed from among them
and the choir members were offered free lunch for the additional time
they put in for practice.

“In sickness and in health...”

Medicine was offered to them whenever they were sick. They were
given free medical consultations by church members who were
physicians.

“We are involved in your life and death.”

Memorial services were held for Loading Ministry participants who
had died. Financial help for their burial was also extended to their
families.

“God loves you and so do we!”

There was constant affirmation to them that God loves them and Knox
UMC is an instrument of God’s love.

Prepared by
Rev. Dr. Maritez C. Cruz,
Associate Pastor, Knox United Methodist Church
66

Conference Examples from the

United States
FLORIDA CONFERENCE: FRESH EXPRESSIONS
In April 2014, conversation about Fresh Expressions took root in the
Florida Conference of the UMC, thanks to the leadership of Bishop
Ken Carter, Audrey Warren, and Vance Rains. Since then, Fresh
Expressions has flourished across the conference—as of 2018, Fresh
Expressions can be found in every district. As we consider the future
of what church looks like, we believe that it will be a mixed economy
of both traditional churches and Fresh Expressions. These two forms
of church must exist together to reach a diverse population with the
good news of Jesus Christ.

Fresh Expressions is an international movement that has us reaching

new people in their backyards and moving beyond our conventional
buildings, meetings, and leaders. It has the mindset of “we’ll come
to you.” Fresh Expressions was created to be a form of church
for the changing culture, established primarily for the benefit of
people who are not yet members of any church. These communities
come into being through principles of listening, serving, contextual
mission, making disciples, and have the potential to become mature
expressions of church shaped by the gospel. There are currently
around 100 Fresh Expressions of church in the Florida Conference,
which vary from gatherings around a community garden, to a pub
group called Beer and Hymns, to a dog park called Paws of Praise.
Every Fresh Expression may model connection with God and one
another very differently, but the heart of each group is to reach new
people in new ways and in new places.

The aim is to form a new gathering or network—church—that

engages mainly with people who have never been to church and in
their own context and culture. At its best, Fresh Expressions is led
by laity and clergy and works alongside more traditional churches.
When we traveled to the United Kingdom in 2015 to see where Fresh
Expressions began, we learned how missional they are, how low cost
and grassroots they should be, and how this becomes a community
 67

of missional believers. They have a few things in common: gathered

people with an interest of some kind, unabashedly Christ-centered,
growing in faith with spiritual growth, and serving others together.

In the Florida Conference we have a Fresh Expressions Steering

Committee, a Fresh Expressions Coordinator, and growing numbers
of Fresh Expressions throughout the Conference. We support these
pioneers as they emerge through micro-grants to enable small
amounts of start-up funding.

There is a difference between a Fresh Expressions and a ministry of

the church. Church initiatives, programs, and ministries serve many
people in many ways. This is in no way to replace fruitful ministry
work in the church. This is going beyond the walls of the church.
An expression was used recently, “soft walls,” meaning that we
go beyond the church buildings. A ministry tends to serve people
differing from a Fresh Expression that stays in community with the
people forming a unique community with no expectation of coming
back to the church campus. In North Fort Myers, a Dinner Church
called Eat, Pray, Love, gathers weekly, eats together, worships and
prays, and hears a simple sermon. They begin to know each other
and care about each other. Eat, Pray, Love developed organically into
a loving community. They have had baptisms at their Dinner Church,
as well as a wedding and a funeral.

While we are in this Post-Christendom era, Fresh Expressions are

inspiring us to return to our Wesleyan roots, finding ways to bring the
word of Christ, meet people where they are, and share hope.

Submitted by
Janet Earls
Director of Congregational Vitality
68

CALIFORNIA-PACIFIC CONFERENCE: SPIRITUAL ROOTS

As we seek to live out the call to Engaging Ministries in the diverse
neighborhoods throughout the Cal-Pac Conference, we are discovering
anew the value of the Wesleyan emphasis on the interrelationship
between social justice and evangelization. As we strengthen our
prophetic presence and witness in our communities, we encounter
again and again a new, diverse generation of faith-based community
organizers and activists who seek missional communities of spiritual
support for living lives of compassion, justice, and joy.

It is out of this experience that the Justice and Compassion Essential

Ministries Team of the Cal-Pac conference has declared the following
as one of our strategic initiatives:

To strengthen and enable the prophetic voice and action of our

connection.

Working for the alleviation of poverty, a more equitable distribution of

wealth, and the building of the Beloved Community both locally and
globally, while intentionally reaching out to those seeking to root their
social justice activism in a community of faith and providing them a
spiritual home.

In order to live out this initiative we have been holding “Mission

Field Engagement” Workshops at strategically located congregations
throughout the conference. These workshops focus on the ways
the local church can develop strategies to “be a good neighbor in
the hood” and to grow as a vital community of discipleship through
building quality, transformative relationships with those who live in and
who love their community.

Here are our basic guidelines for being a church that’s a good
neighbor in the hood:

1. Be actively present in your community and enjoy discovering

who is there. Both those in need and the social activists and
organizations seeking to address those needs.
 69

2. Move from “providing services” and “holding services” to building

relationships of mutual blessing in which talents are nourished,
gifts are shared and needs are addressed.

3. Stay very close to Jesus wherever you are.

Blessings from the City of Angels,

David Farley
Director of Justice and Compassion Ministries
California–Pacific Annual Conference
70

For Further Study

Churchless: Understanding Today’s Unchurched and How to Connect
with Them. Barna Group. George Barna & David Kinnaman, editors.
Tyndale Momentum, 2014.

Transforming Community: The Wesleyan Way to Missional

Congregations. Henry H. Knight III & Douglas Powe, Jr. Discipleship
Resources, 2016.

Holding Up Your Corner. F. Willis Johnson. Abingdon Press, 2017.

The Race to Reach Out: Connecting Newcomers to Christ in a New

Century. Douglas T. Anderson & Michael J. Coyner. Abingdon Press,
2004.

Roadmap to Renewal: Rediscovering the Church’s Mission (Revised).

Douglas W. Ruffle. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2017.

Fresh Expressions: A New Kind of Methodist Church for People Not

in Church. Kenneth H. Carter, Jr. & Audrey Warren. Abingdon Press,
2017.

A Missionary Mindset: What Church Leaders Need to Know to Reach

Their Communities – Lessons from E. Stanley Jones. Douglas W.
Ruffle. Discipleship Resources, 2016.

Teamworks: Connecting with Your Community. Craig Kennet Miller.

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.

NPR’s Storycorps:
[Link]
reignites-2-artists-ambitions

May 17, 2016, Amnesty Poland, based on Arthur Aron’s experiment

from 1996: [Link]
“Engagement involves
initiating and building
relationships. Engagement
seeks to ensure that
outreach and evangelism
efforts become a vital part
of an intentional system of
Discipleship.”
(Pg. 23, Engaging Your Community)
As part of the See All The People movement,
this new practical book will push your
congregation to engage the community around
them as part of a discipleship system.

COM962

REV. JUNIUS B. DOTSON is a dynamic preacher, public speaker, church

planter, and a recognized visionary leader in church revitalization. He is
the General Secretary (Chief Executive Officer) of Discipleship Ministries,
an international agency of The United Methodist Church. He was
instrumental in growing and transforming St. Mark’s United Methodist
Church, a 3,500-member church, into a multi-campus congregation in
Wichita, KS. He is the author of two books, Developing an Intentional
Discipleship System: A Guide for Congregations, and Engaging Your
Community: A Guide to Seeing All the People.