A non-conformist parish?

How do we engage our communities?  That is a huge question all churches, but especially church plants, need to answer.  How do we ensure we are known?  How do we reach out to the community?  How do we meet people, invite people, disciple people?

The default from a previous generation is to hold evangelistic events, good quality events at which the gospel is spoken or which function as bridge building barrier breakers.  Except this makes an assumption I'm just not sure we can make anymore; that our people are plugged into their communities.  I'm not sure this is the case.  Certainly in my experience it is the minority of church members that bring a guest.  Many simply don't know anyone to bring, or their work is so distant a commute from their home and church that it is too far for people to consider coming, many of our churches contain a considerable number of commuters which makes inviting their friends harder because they are less likely to come (or we simply believe they are).

So how do we change this?  We need to readopt the parish mentality, that the area around our church is our mission field.  That ought to be reflected in a number of things:

1. Get people to live in the area where your church meets and work within a 15 minute drive.  This creates a sense of shared mission.  Put simply people will disengage from reaching the community if they don't live in it.  (Evangelism is already hard to get people to do, I wonder if living like that is a short cut to not having to invite anyone without a guilty conscience?)

2. As pastors we must see the area as our parish and connect with it.  I guess for some of us this is easier than others.  Geography will define the limits of our patch naturally, but even where this isn't the case I wonder if it'd help to have an area we view as ours.

3. Pray for people in your parish by name.  This is only possible if we've done the above.

4. Preach addressing the issues the parish faces.  Not in terms of what passage or series we pick but in terms of some of the issues we address.  What are the local fears?  Where do people falsely turn for their security?  What are the things they rely on?  What are their hopes and dreams?  And how does the gospel as revealed in the passage we are preaching confront, challenge and address those?

5. Connect your church to your parish.  That is one of our challenges, for those who live out of area I need to be thinking through how I get them to connect with individuals in it.  Because once they get to know and care about individuals they will pray for them and naturally want them to come to know Jesus.

Our area is naturally defined by geography, though that is changing as it grows through housing development. But I know my parish.  I walk it everyday with the dog.  I do everything I can in that parish, play football twice a week, send my kids to school, and so on.  That means I am getting to know people and am getting known by people.  At the school gates every morning and afternoon there is the chance to speak to the same people, to listen, to care, to break down some barriers.  We've even had some parents approach us to ask out of the blue for pastoral help because they just need someone to talk to.  Those people we meet are the natural people for me to invite to any and every evangelistic event we run.  For some people these events have become a yearly staple, they put them in their calendar before they are invited, often asking about it before I've even done the invites.

And it gives me a wealth of people to pray for.  As a leader I need to lead in evangelism.  If I haven't got out of the office and gone fishing for men why would anyone else?  If I haven't prioritised meeting those who desperately need Jesus why would anyone else?  And if I'm not meeting these people and listening to them I won't preach in such a way that their deepest need and pressing issues are addressed in the gospel, and that won't encourage anyone to invite their friends.