Community Engagement, Evangelism
How to Use Your Church's Fall Events to Build Relationships with People in Your Neighborhood
September 18, 2024
Many churches this fall will be hosting community events in their neighborhood. Back to School backpack giveaways, church picnics complete with blow-up bouncy houses, and Trunk-or-Treat evenings that fill church parking lots with candy and costumes. The hope is that these events will both bless the community and introduce the community to a church family where they are welcomed and cared for. Ultimately, these outcomes depend on the relationship-developing that happens between those in the church and their neighbors.
Our 2024 CRCNA Denominational Survey shows that we have a lot of room to improve in this area. The statement, “I know the people in the neighborhood that my church is located in” received some of the lowest responses out of all the missional statements. Only 11% of respondents strongly agree with this statement; 13% say it is mostly true; 24% somewhat true; 25% hardly true; and 27% say it is definitely untrue.
The community events we host this fall are opportunities to build relationships with the people in our churches' neighborhoods. However, this requires some intentionality on our part!
In the recent book How To Know A Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, David Brooks writes that “being open-hearted is a prerequisite for being a full, kind, and wise human being. People need social skills… The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well…”
How can you equip your congregation to engage in small, concrete social actions that lead to more and deeper neighborhood relationships? Here are a few ideas:
When we approach these events with a readiness to really see and know those from the neighborhood who attend, we are acting like Jesus who was more concerned with the people he met than the journey he was on. There are people in your church’s neighborhood who long to experience the love of Jesus. What small, concrete social actions in your fall events will create the opportunities for these relationships?
Amy Schenkel is Resonate Global Mission’s Congregational Gospel Witness Leader
Community Engagement, Evangelism
Community Engagement, Evangelism
Community Engagement
Evangelism, Community Engagement
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