Compassion By Design

It wasn’t long ago that marketing for churches was a controversial topic. We have come a long way toward more community engagement in the last 20 years. Today, it is routine for new churches to plan outreach events that include services for the community. The “block party” has made it to the official research on new church health, with a big nod for the outcomes that result from including community events like this in the new church strategy. Does community service hold more for our future than just another outreach method in a church growth model?

I’ve been meeting some church planters recently who are taking the idea of service to a new level. In my perspective, there are at least four values “camps” right now related to the role of community service and compassionate ministry in the church: those who won’t do it; those who include community service as outreach or an experiment; the church that holds service to others as a value and routine element of healthy church life; and those who are radically reorienting their church to organize it around community service. While forcing churches into distinct categories has drawbacks, it can help us to clarify our own paradigm. The three active groups that include community service in their church life can be grouped into SERVICE AS OPPORTUNITY OR EXPERIMENT, SERVICE AS CORE VALUE, and SERVICE AS IDENTITY.

Let me describe these three active groups and their challenges:

SERVICE AS OPPORTUNITY OR EXPERIMENT—sees community service as a good opportunity to stretch spiritual muscles and a good place to increase positive awareness of the value and presence of the church. Some are experimenting with service, out of sense that is the right thing to do, but they have yet to figure out how it fits for the long-term. This group tends to engage only in episodic or short-term service activity, often viewing this activity primarily as an invitation opportunity. The risk here is that community members with long term service involvement and the emerging generations may see this as insincere or as just another marketing method. The temporary presence of the church in the community setting, sends a mixed message. I wonder if this group can sustain service as a long-term part of church life, and if that service will have real impact to transform communities or the people who participate.

SERVICE AS CORE VALUE—sees community service as an ongoing character of healthy church life both for the maturity resulting from serving and for building an incarnational presence of Jesus in the community. This group views service as neither temporary nor optional, and seeks to build effective service into the fabric of both church life and personal lifestyles. This group seeks to find long term ways to involve the church in serving and to make this activity normative for the growing Christian. When the test of time, talent and treasure is applied, this group finds themselves routinely investing in service that is not purely marketing or reaching out to invite. The risk for this group is the danger that comes when moving into uncharted territory, and the need to negotiate the tensions that surround the incarnational vs. attractional church model and social versus evangelical gospel. This group takes on the real challenge of helping people to be Jesus in their world—not just the teaching Jesus, but the serving and healing Jesus too.

SERVICE AS IDENTITY—organizes and identifies the church around service activity. This is certainly true of the Salvation Army and its congregations, but it also true of a growing number of new churches that reverse the proposition from the “church that serves”, to “servants that grow the church.” These leaders build the identity and core activity of their church around serving people, develop incarnational leaders who have service as a lifestyle, and then grow a church among those who volunteer to serve and those who are served. There are a number or excellent examples, that I will be featuring on our redesigned www.compassionbydesign.org website in the coming months. Service for these churches is the primary organizing principle, their primary activity and their most public face. The risk for this group is that they can get so lost in service (which is new to them) that they disconnect practical service from holistic transformation, or they make basic blunders in the operation of their service/charitable endeavors that make the work unsustainable. They must not forget that they are exploring “past the rim” (to put this in sci-fi terms) of known church life, and to remain tethered to coaches and mentors. Their effort requires a new kind of leadership, and will test their ability to truly make disciples and sustain a new kind of church life.

Whether you agree with the groups identified above, or my descriptions, several things seem clear. There is underway a wholesale shift among many churches toward incarnational or service related ministry as more than a marketing plan. And while I have identified three categories, it is a continuum down which many churches are continuing to proceed. For many churches this is not a passing fad, but a new feature of church life that is likely to continue. For many leaders, the theological thinking is more developed than the practice. For my part, I am convinced that this movement is here to stay, and that it is a part of critical changes that will restore credibility and relevance to the church. Where do you stand on these values and how will you include service to others as a part of your healthy church?

Resources: needs assessment kit for new churches, needs assessment training, and community ministry training

The self disclosure by Willow Creek in their Reveal study holds some important insights for churches that want to grow, and for the leaders of existing churches and those who are working to start new churches.   After providing substantial leadership to the seeker sensitive movement, Willow’s latest emphasis is on a different kind of Growth– growing people’s hearts! For critics of this movement, this new emphasis might seem like an important shift, perhaps satisfying some of the long term objections to the whole seeker approach. 

The first thing that struck me was their new use of the marketing approach in a church context– What has been a major tool of the Willow approach- effective use of marketing, has now been used to measure the condition of the heart, instead its use to help get people in the seats.  I am not sure that I go along with the idea that market testing and analysis can be categorized as a magical tool to see inside the human heart, but I do believe that the practice of intentionally listening to people, and learning to ask them about their spiritual condition is an important model.

When I was pastoring full time, I weekly spent time listening in prayer, and in digesting the Bible, but I didn’t do enough listening to people.  I think this could be true of many churches, and is the reason that I developed Understanding Community Needs for new churches, and will publish the ReFocus version within the next couple of weeks, a process for existing churches that want to listen intentionally to their communities in preparation for community service.

The second element that has stood out as I have read Reveal, is the focus on personal involvement in service.  This is an important question: “what does service, and particularly community service have to do with maturing the heart?”  I am convinced that this connection is worth exploring at much greater depth and in my mind will prove to be one of the most important elements of the Reveal discussion.

Willow has set a new standard for listening, and some of the findings from their research are going to make a big difference in the way that we think about how to grow people up.   For churches that want to become more missional, and for new churches that want to build something on purpose, this discussion will deepen our capacity to lead.  I will be writing some more about this as I digest the Reveal book over the next few weeks, and believe it will probably impact the way that I work to help churches, and perhaps even the way I view my own heart.