HEALTHY CHURCH: Reaching Your Neighbors

Is your church, and are you, reaching your neighborhood for Christ? Are there any resources for how that might be accomplished, and where do you begin? There are multiple resources, such as Exegeting the Community, Identify My Oikos, 25 Ways to Live Missional in Your Neighborhood and other excellent materials. If you would like these resources and others, please email us at larry@bmaam.com or heidi@bmaam.com. The mission has not changed, and there are a multitude of creative tools available to help you develop a plan of outreach and how to carry that plan out. The following content is from an article I wrote 10 years ago:

We desperately need a church multiplication movement here in North America, but that is the big picture from the macro level. The truth is harsh, but we must face the facts — it will never happen without each one of us living like Jesus did. It begins with making disciples and, if we are going to make disciples, we must engage the culture around us, striving to be the salt and light God has commanded us to be. Are we working, living and serving alongside people who are not followers of Jesus so that we might share the gospel with them?

Bob Logan wrote, “Engaging culture... means being where the people are, living among them, getting to know them and letting them get to know us… When we meet people on their turf, allowing them to really know us — including our spirituality — that’s when we find people who are curious about God and open to Him!” Tom Clegg put it this way, “If you don’t have friends outside the church there’s something wrong with you and your version of Christianity.” We are to be agents of transformation who keep company with sinners, just like Jesus!

Dave Ferguson, in Discover Your Mission Now (a free e-book), shares five simple principles to change the world right where you live. He uses the acronym BLESS — Begin with prayer, Listen, Eat, Serve, Story — to get us started and give us a great track to run on. We are called to live as missionaries in our zip code in order to see changed lives, changed communities and changed neighborhoods. While borrowing the BLESS acronym from Dave Ferguson, the content is “borrowed” from many different resources:

• Begin with Prayer — Are you praying for all of the lost people in your circle of influence? Elmer Towns talked about and coined the phrase “FRANgelism” to focus us on reaching our Friends, Relatives, Associates and Neighbors. Do you pray every day for those you know who do not know Christ personally? How could you build a bridge to them in order to speak into their lives? Have you considered doing a prayer walk around your neighborhood, asking God to open doors of opportunity?

• Listen — What are they saying? What questions do they need answered? The best way to show someone you value them is to listen to them. How can you build a relationship, discover their needs and serve them sacrificially? The only way to figure out how to best come alongside others in their spiritual journey is to listen carefully and ask the right questions. Hopefully, the natural progression will be to listen to their story, share your story and then tell His story.

• Eat — Find ways to get people together and build relationships. In our culture, a great way to accomplish this is to have them over for a meal in your home. You can also invite them to go golfing, fishing, hunting or some other hobby where you can laugh together and do life together. Normally, people do not connect with the whole church at once, but their starting point is with a few individuals with whom they can begin building relationships. People are looking for “authentic” relationships, and people are never a means to an end.

• Serve — We must be willing to serve others sacrificially. Who are the people God has placed around you? What are their needs? How can you find out what their needs are and then meet them? What are you hearing God say you should do (remember Begin in Prayer) and what actions should you take? Some people are very good at meeting physical needs, while others are better at meeting spiritual needs. It takes both! Words without actions to back them up are dead, and the good news unshared is not good news.

• Story — There are a lot of nice guys in your neighborhood, at work and in your family who will do random acts of kindness but are not born again. Bob Logan said, “Living incarnationally and missionally as followers of Jesus brings something different to the equation — the power of spiritual transformation.” Rom 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

Get going! Dive in and start blessing others. What are you waiting for? There will never be a perfect time, and you will make mistakes along the way. The real question is, “Do you believe in blessing others enough to take the risk?” You need to give yourself permission to make mistakes and realize that your effectiveness in ministering to others will improve with practice. Look around and ask God to show you who it is that He wants you to BLESS!

Healthy Christians and healthy churches bless others!