It’s easy for a church to focus more on its members than what’s going on within the community, but this isn’t the best approach.
When there are problems within the community, odds are, you have problems within the church. Remember, your members are a part of the community.
Churches are not only responsible for spiritual growth, but also for helping bring communities together. This means churches have the power to restore a broken community to a thriving, positive environment.
Let Everyone Air Their Issues
This might sound like a recipe for disaster, but think about how much you truly know about your church members. The first step in the process to restore a broken community is to build better community within the church. After all, happy, engaged members are more likely to spread God’s word outside of church.
You don’t have to have an open forum, but let members air out their issues through anonymous texts, cards, white boards, etc. The object is to create a wall of issues for everyone to look at and discuss. This makes everyone talk and even shows pastors the issues that are most important to their entire church family.
Go Beyond The Obvious Causes
Every church is involved in some type of charity. However, it’s a good idea to branch out sometimes. Your local community always needs help with food, clothing and shelter. You shouldn’t stop helping here, but maybe consider other options, such as:
- Offering business skill training
- Tutoring kids
- Hosting fun exercise parties
- Starting a community garden
These are ways to get more than just local charity volunteers and your church together. The idea is to bring the entire community together in new and creative ways. After all, imagine if your church helps a dozen recently laid off workers get new jobs faster. They might just see that God does have a purpose for them and start building a new relationship with God.
Create A Meme Campaign
This one requires you to think way outside the box, but it’s a highly creative way to restore a broken community. You’ll need some social media skills, but the results are well worth it. Memes are insanely popular and have the power to go viral quickly. They can be about anything and they make people start to think.
Find a few dozen images to use for your memes. Make sure they’re not offensive in any way. Now, hold contests within the church to come up with the best text for the memes. This engages your members and makes them far more likely to share the memes.
Now, start sharing memes on a regular basis. Encourage members to share them. By creating your own memes, you make your members and the local community start to think. Try for positive, yet humorous text that makes people want to start exploring their relationship with God again.
Give Out Concern Cards
You might have a better understanding of your members after they’ve aired out their issues. What about the local community? Give out concern cards to the unchurched. While many might throw them away, some of them will send them back. For best results, add your church’s website and social media details to the cards so people can comment online.
The idea is to figure out what the biggest problems your community is currently facing. This helps your church figure out innovative new volunteer opportunities to aid the community. It also shows the community that your church cares. This is enough to make people start to come in and start finding their true path in life.
Set Up Group Sessions Without Church Leaders
Once again, to restore a broken community, you have to have a strong community within the church. As this one writer’s experience shows, community is sometimes exclusive within the church. Set up random group sessions that require members to sit down and talk with new visitors and members they may barely know. The idea is to create a much stronger community.
This community building then continues throughout the local community. There are more conversations and people are more willing to ask questions about God and their own issues. It’s through conversation that the community starts to find a purpose again.
Start A Small Business
Supporting a church is hard enough, so a small business probably sounds impossible. However, if volunteers work together, it’s possible to start a small business within the community. Hire members who’ve lost their job. Bring in community members who seem lost or alone. This is your church’s chance to give people a purpose again in life. A purpose that they’ll associate with God.
Publish Engaging, Entertaining Content
While many churches blog, most of the content is dry and boring. Instead of just posting a sermon, go for something more engaging and entertaining. Tie in current culture, make a few jokes and offer guidance along the way. As more people read your blog, they’ll come together as a community. It’s through those simple words in a blog post that many start to find their purpose and you’re able to restore a broken community.
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