The Other Key Guy is Key to a Community Focus
To be clear, success in becoming an externally focused new church depends on raising up a new kind of leader– someone who lives and breathes community. They need to be person who lives and speaks “ministry”, but also lives and speaks “community.” They are after all two different languages.
I am convinced that either language can be learned. You can have a career changer with good leadership skills, business background or community expertise who can learn to be a ministry leader, and the converse is true. The important thing is that you are making this community role a planned leadership focus, and that you develop and place someone(s) in that position.
One of the keys to effective community impact is a community focused leader, who is focused on growing quality community work.
In memory of my brother
I have shared my thoughts about my brother on this page, and hope that you can gain from the insights that his passing brings.
How do you set up a needs assessment in your local community
You are looking for a place where alot of the people that you want to reach in your new church will visit. A question from a local church planter sums up the basics:
On 9/9/08 1:21 PM, church planter wrote:
I just recruited a volunteer to set up our venues for the surveys we do this fall. When they callWalmart, Target, etc., who do they need to speak with to solidify usage of their store front and dates? The top manager? An associate manager? AND - Can this be done on the phone?
Dmills wrote:
It can be done on the phone if they act matter of fact and you drop names like, “I am with the XYZ corporation, you may have seen our free jump house at a community event, we do a variety of community events around the city including……, we’d like to offer some free recreation at your store (don’t use ice cream with grocery stores).” They can talk to whatever manager is on duty.
This response requires the use of an existing non-church non profit as auspices.
Block Party on Steroids, Convoy of Hope, Washington DC September 6, 7
It was a block party for a huge section of the entire DC metropolitan area. Veteran church planter (and multi-site guru) Mark Batterson and his team lead a massive block party this weekend that included all the community services that you can imagine and came complete with nationally known hip hop, a near carnival size children’s area, food service by Angel Food Ministries, resume writing, hair cuts, medical prevention and lots of other resources all with canvas tents and a professional stage. While I have been around lots of outreach events, and run quite a few myself—I’ve never seen one so well organized, staffed and one that represented so much in the way of value for community members. Way to Go National Community Church!
The NCC folks had a broad tent for this event (no pun intended), which allowed lots of other organizations to be meaningfully involved in the day. With more than 50 churches and untold number of community organizations and their volunteers, it was really a study in community cooperation, and sends the right kind of signal about the church being ready, willing and able to play well with others. Even though the NCC folks lead this, it was owned by dozens of organizations. We could all learn a lesson from this approach.
The breadth of the event allowed for other wins to occur as well. There are many reasons why this event was important, but I will Mark or others share about that. Let me point out about a couple of organizations/ people that participated in the day, and how this cooperation multiplied their impact:
New Church planter, Ron Klabunde and his wife Stefani spent the day wrestling the bar-b-cue alongside of 90 volunteers who were cooking and serving 10,000 meals donated by Angel Food Ministries. This was a chance for Ron and his wife, who are new to the area to spend time with locals—rub shoulders with people who might look like the ones that he will reach in Sterling, VA. Ron has committed to growing his church through a Compassion Planting model fashioned after the Compassion by Design approach, and this massive block party was just the thing to let him get a great glimpse of DC metro “unplugged” and hopefully inspired better block parties in his new future.
Revitalization Pastor- Pastor Fitz Carter is revitalizing a church in the DC Metro, and he along with his energetic wife and church team join Ron in the Angel Food tent getting to meet and talk with 10,000 people over the course of the day. Fitz made the choice to give up preaching for the day, when tropical storm Hanna moved the event from Saturday (Sept. 6th) to Sunday (Sept. 7th) and he couldn’t have had a better meet and greet opportunity anywhere in the district.
Lots of lessons here, lots of great ministry, and block party that was high impact.