Assignment: Get Out There

Emergent Village has a good article here by Sherman Kuek of Malaysia about the importance of contextualization in theological discernment. Context is crucial in missional discernment as well.
I’m increasingly sold on the importance of leaving my church building and getting out into the world if I hope to be an effective pastor.

I've been asked by colleagues what this means, so here goes . . .

What “getting out there” doesn’t mean*:
- visiting parishioners at their homes
- going to the hospital to see sick parishioners
- eating lunch out with the local clergy association

*Although these are things pastors still are asked to do, they do not "count" in terms of getting out into the unchurchy world.

What “getting out there” could mean**:
- hammering nails with Habitat
- serving dinner at the local shelter
- stacking soup cans at food closet down the street

** Although if you are doing these activities only with church people, the experience can be the same as it would be inside the walls of your church building.

What “getting out there” definitely means:
- listening to what the people at the next table at Starbucks are talking about
- going to the play performed by your neighborhood high school
- attending the local school board/town council/county board meeting w/o any church business
- hanging out at the bagel place closest to the church building

I remember a parishioner -- who was concerned about how “diverse” the new members were -- once asking, “Where do these people live? Where are they coming from?” His point was that “they don’t look like ‘us’ and they don’t act like ‘us.’” But actually they all came from the immediate neighborhood. That parishioner had simply spent so much time within the walls of the church building that he hadn’t noticed that the neighborhood had changed.

We tend to think that our congregations look exactly like our communities. Maybe they do. But we can’t serve and love the locals if we don’t know who they are/what they are talking about/what they do for fun/what they like. That’s why we have to get out there.

Here’s the problem: most congregations don’t want to pay their pastor to hang out at the local coffee shop because it's not “work.” But here’s how to do it (if you are on church staff):

1- Take your work with you. You probably have a book to read. Scripture to exegete. Class to plan. So multi-task.

2- Send someone else. In fact, send the whole outreach team individually to different local hangouts and then meet back at the church building after an hour or two to compare notes. Who was there? What were they talking about?

3- Essential: Be sure to be alone when you go park yourself in the local diner. If you go with someone else, it’s much harder to focus on what's going on with the people around you. And if you're alone, someone might pull up a chair and talk with you.

If you like people-watching, it’s a heavenly assignment. The next assignment is to analyze your observations: how is our church serving these people? Why would they (or wouldn’t they) be a part of our congregation?

Such are my thoughts after another monastery day.

Mosaic of art by some of our neighbors in Northern Virginia: City Rhythm by Amy Murchison Schlenker, Seesaw by Betty Rice Steim, and The Couple by Beverly Ryan.