It was 10pm on Friday night and we were all tired but exhilarated after running a jazz night at church which was as good as anything that you would pay lots of money for. The coffee, the cakes, the ambiance, the jazz, the short talk, all went as well as you could expect, so we rejoiced during our prayer time.
The event was part of the Moore College Mission I was involved in this year. It took a lot of work, but this event was one of the two foci of our engagement with the community. The other was a Da Vinci Code night, and for both, the church had advertised widely, and we had door knocked extensively, and both were run extremely well.
As I was talking with the minister of the church some months later he commented that the total number of non Christians present at these two big events was less than ten, and of those present none wanted anything more to do with the church. It seemed like so little fruit from such a huge effort.
The minister then went on to encourage me. During our mission week, we door knocked homes in a housing development that had just been settled. Every resident had been there for less than a year. As a result of talking to people about the church, and the chatting about things, a number had come to activities run by the church.
That got me thinking. In our desire to engage with people it is so easy to observe what draws people to things in the wider community and copy these. The problem is that unless we pour huge resources into them we do it so much more poorly than others, and when we include the gospel talk, it just seems so out of place that it grates and is not heard. What our world so desperately longs for is relationship, and that is one thing that God, through His people offers.
When a person or a family moves into a new house in a new suburb they know no one, and so this is our opportunity when they arrive, to meet them with a map of the area, help in buses and train timetables and to tell them of their church in the area. We should expect that this care will engage us with our community, in a manner that is entirely appropriate to faith. As developers open new suburbs, Christians should be there welcoming the new residents with hampers, care and an invitation to join us in growing in knowing God.
It's not just new suburbs though. What do you think the result would be if members of our congregations took the responsibility for seeing which houses had been sold or let by local real estate agents, and when the new residents arrive that we are there to welcome them?
This is the sort of ministry so many of us are able to do. It is low key, but in God's goodness does bear fruit. It would be good to assess our engagement with community in ways that are not overshadowed by the entertainment industry.
