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A Community Conspiracy.

By Isaac Friday October 17, 2008

I’m still thinking about this.

What would happen if we truly started using our resources and church grounds without reservation to help build our communities? What if we pooled our resources with other churches (or even other like-minded community organizations) to better our neighborhood? What would that look like?

  • Park benches near the bike trail?
  • Community classes in our education building? (Spanish as a 2nd Language, Budgeting, Basic Skills, Resume-writing, etc)
  • A skateboarding area on our back parking lot?
  • Neighborhood clean-up projects?
  • A refurbished playground?
  • Big-Brothers / Big-Sisters Mentoring programs?

This is how I describe being outward focused:

Investing without expecting.

We invest in our communities and neighborhoods, but not so they give us money – but for their betterment. We look out for the needs of others for their good (Rom 15:2). We invest in them without any expectation that they will directly pay back what we pour into them, but with the expectation that we will have a clear opportunity to show Christ’s love and direct people to Him.

This quote from Gina McClain on Swerve Blog really gets to the point:

“What if you got crazy and pulled in a few churches within your community? Let’s say (for kicks) that you conspire together…that your goal is the same. What if this group of churches put together a comprehensive plan that accomplished this goal:

To expose people in your community to the life-changing message of Christ, plug them into a church family, then set them on a path toward spiritual growth?

Why are churches so poor at collaborating? Why do we function as silos? Would our resources go further if we shared them? Would our reach go deeper if we extended it in unison?

How potent would the church be if we conspired together?


  • Thanks for the encouragement!

    I want to clarify, though, that I'm not saying be reckless with our finances. I definitely believe there has to be a plan in place for investing in the community. Otherwise, I think it really would be poor stewardship.

    For example, teaching a Spanish/English course could bring people in to an environment where we could talk to them toward Christ. So, maybe I wasn't totally honest with the "no expectations" thing - I think we need to have the expectation that we'll get to share the gospel with them, and whatever we invest has to work toward that end.

    It's probably a given - but I wanted to make that point a little stronger.
  • I'm in. There are lots of ways this can work, and if we can do this kind of outward expenditure of $$ and time (without expecting! I like that!) without compromise of the message of the Gospel (always a temptation) then I think we'd see some real change going on--maybe in very small chunks--but REAL change.

    The skateboarding thing isn't *exactly* my bugaboo, but it's a sticky wicket. I went to a church before that had a great sledding hill and there were signs posted all the time about people not coming and using the hill, etc. The leadership said it was about liability and vandalism (though I'd guess more the second than the first). It always bugged me that a place that was supposed to be inviting to the lost your first impression was "don't go in here or else!." The liability issue is a big deal, though I have some thoughts about that. The vandalism one isn't, though, to me. I have a lot of kids, and they destroy stuff *all the time* that I would prefer didn't get destroyed. And so I threw them out of the house. um, not really--I consdier the occasional property destruction to be part of the cost of discipleship--and your thoughts here lend themselves to that.

    Thanks for sharing them. I'm confident that this kind of attitude is going to be a blessing to the congregation God has called you to.
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